From the Ashes
by WordSmithers
Summary: Hermione is on the run during the war, and finds herself unexpectedly allied with Draco Malfoy. Worse, she finds herself developing feelings for him. The unlikely pair fight their way through the war, both fighting towards a different goal. Post DH, not canon compliant.
1. Chapter 1

My breath pumped raggedly and unevenly from my body. My legs burned, and my pulse was frantic. But I couldn't stop. The only thing keeping me alive was forward motion. So I had no choice but to keep going. My whole body was protesting as I threw myself into a river. I let the current carry me for a bit. I knew they would be coming after me, and attempting to cover my track even slightly was wise. The freezing water did nothing to calm my aching muscles. When I could stand it no longer I pulled myself from the water. I gasped, shivering as the air hit my skin, and continued to struggle through the woods. I heard a twig snap and looked around frantically.

"There you are." A voice sounded from my right. I jumped and looked toward the sound of the voice. My body sagged in relief.

"I don't think I've ever been so happy to see you." I panted out. He grinned and made his way over to me.

"Well now that does hurt a man's ego." He bent down and scooped me up into his arms. "Did you get it?" He asked. I nodded. His smile grew and he brought his face closer to mine, kissing me quickly and gently. "I knew you could do it." His arms tightened around me and he grinned before setting off at a run. "I've got camp set up just over this ridge. They won't be able to find us, not with all the wards I've put up." I nodded against his chest, and sighed, trying to get my breathing back under control.

The tent came into view and we quickly slid into it. It was like a nice little cottage on the inside. Thankfully a fire was burning in the fireplace. I could smell something cooking in the kitchen. "You've been busy I see." I commented sliding out of his arms.

"I do what I can." He answered with a grin. "You ought to change out of those sodden clothes. I can help you with that if you like." He laughed and shot a wink and a grin at me.

"I think I can manage." I rolled my eyes, and wandered off towards the bathroom. A fresh change of clothes and two fluffy towels awaited me. I turned on the shower, and then I pulled my prize out a hidden pocket in my cloak. The whole reason I was being hunted down. I held the crystal up the light and gazed at it. It was such a small thing to have so much power. I put it carefully on the vanity and stepped into the shower. I moaned as the warm water hit my body. I stood under the spray loving the warmth that spread over my body.

I wasn't entirely sure how I came to be in the situation I was in. How did I wind up working with someone who I had always been at odds with? And not just working, genuinely liking them. I sighed and blinked a couple of times, returning my mind to the present. I quickly finished showering; I wrapped a towel around my body, and used the other one to towel my hair dry. I got dressed into a pair of black sweats and white V-neck shirt. I stuck my feet into a pair of fluffy black slippers and padded back into the main room.

"Feeling better?" He asked. I nodded. I walked over to where he was sitting and a dropped down next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. He rested his hand on my knee and put his cheek against the top of my head. "Are you hungry?" He asked.

"Starving." I answered. He stood and offered me a hand. I took it and he led me to the kitchen. He set dinner down on the table, and sat across from me.

"I'll have to heal you up after dinner." He said casually. I raised an eyebrow. "You've got cuts all over your face." I put a hand to my face and felt it. There were indeed cuts all over it.

"I can heal myself."

"I've no doubt, but healing facial injuries can be difficult." He cast a level stare at me.

"I suppose you're right. Thanks for dinner. It's good."

"You're welcome." He smiled.

After dinner he sat across from me in the sitting room and tucked two strands of hair behind my ears. He looked intently at my face. He raised his wand and muttered a couple of incantations. I could feel the swelling easing and felt the cuts heal up. "Are you hurt anywhere else?" He asked.

"No, I don't think so. I'll check later though. Thanks." He nodded and brushed three fingers across my face. I felt a blush creep up where he had just touched me. He grinned at my reaction. His face lowered to mine and his lips lightly brushed against mine. I could feel his lips curve upwards against mine. His hands came to rest on my ribcage and he kissed me a little more forcefully. My hands shifted to his shoulders and I pushed back slightly. "I'm really tired." I sighed.

"Of course, want me to read to you?" He asked. I nodded. He led me over to a couch and I settled in against his side. His voice soon washed over me. I could feel my eyes growing heavy and I sunk deeper into the couch. I heard him shut the book and put it down. His arms came around me and his hands ran through my hair. My mind grew hazy and sleep was imminent. I could feel him moving, he was moving me, probably to the bedroom. He set me down on the bed and was going to leave. I reached out a hand and grabbed his.

"Stay with me." I whispered. I felt the bed shift, and his body wrap over mine.

"Goodnight Hermione." He said, his hand coming to rest on my stomach.

"Goodnight Draco." I mumbled. My hands came to rest over his, and I sighed, slipping into sleep.

 **AN: Just a story idea floating about in my head. I'll back track in later chapters to explain how they ended up together. Anyway let me know what you think! The rating miiight change later on. Drop me review! :)**


	2. Chapter 2

When I woke up in the morning my head was on Draco's chest, his hands were tangled in my hair. His face was peaceful in sleep. I closed my eyes and settled back on his chest. Taking in the moment, so I could remember what this felt like. It was war time. Anything could change at any moment. When Voldemort had been defeated, I had felt sure that I would live in a time of peace. I was wrong. It had been ridiculous to think that the war would be ended that easily.

There had been a year or so of relative normalcy. Then things got out of hand again. Voldemort's old supporters started up strong again, only this time under someone else. He dubbed himself 'The New Dark Lord' he was apparently a descendant of Grindlewald. No one knew if that was true, but it added to the terror he brought along with him. His name was Orion Jastrix, a name not quite as impressive as the previous Dark Lords, but he was filled with malice, and up to taking up the mantle.

I had been working at the ministry, in the department of defence. I was not an auror but I did work closely with them. I was involved in many high profile missions; I was a consultant of sorts.

This is when Draco Malfoy came back into my life… I had been sitting at my desk going over some papers when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in." I called.

"Sorry to bother you miss Granger, but Figgins is requesting your presence in her office."

"Thanks Heather." I stood and walked quickly to my superior's office. I knocked briskly three times before entering.

"Ah there you are thank you for being so quick." Mrs. Figgins was a rather stern looking woman who reminded me of Professor McGonagall.

"Of course Mrs. Figgins, what can I do for you?" I took a seat as Mrs. Figgins indicated. The door opened behind me and someone else took a seat next to me. I turned my head and was greeted by the sight of none other than Draco Malfoy.

"I believe you and Mr. Malfoy are acquainted?" She asked.

"Yes, Malfoy and I went to school together." I answered.

"I take it from your face that you two didn't get on. That's a bit unfortunate." She said looking at me over her glasses.

"Unfortunate in what way mam?" I asked.

"Well you are going to be spending quite a bit of time together. I've a mission for the pair of you." I raised my eyebrow in question. "You no doubt remember that in the last war the Malfoy's were big supporters of Voldemort's. It should come as no surprise to you that they are now involved with Orion." I shifted a bit uncomfortably.

"So why is Malfoy here then?"

"To help." It was the first time Draco spoke in that meeting. "I learnt from my time under Voldemort. I never wanted to be trapped by something like that again. So I stayed in his ranks long enough to gather crucial information, and now here I am."

"I'm sorry, but what has this got to do with me?"

"Well Draco has informed us of an object that Orion is after. One which could win him the war, and we feel that your skillset makes you qualified for this task." She paused and readjusted her glasses. "You and Draco will be going into hiding, trying to track down this item, and destroy it."

"Why do we need to go into hiding?" I asked.

"Because if anyone discovers that you are trying to obtain this item, you will be in danger. Hiding is the best way to guarantee your safety."

"How do you know we can trust him? Double agents aren't unheard of are they?"

"I assure you, every precaution has been taken to ensure he is telling the truth."

"Well then what is this object?" I asked.

"That is top secret. Draco will brief you on it once you've gone into hiding." I tried to hold back my frustrated groan.

"Where are we hiding then? You have to give me something to go off of here. And what should I tell my friends and family?"

"Your location will constantly change. And as for your friends and family, I will leave that up to your discretion."

"Right, when do we leave then?"

"This evening Granger."

"That's soon. If you'll excuse me I have quite a lot of preparation to do if we are leaving tonight." I stood and strode from the office.

* * *

Draco stirring underneath me roused me from my musings. His hands slid down onto my back. I looked up at him. "Morning." He grinned at me.

"Good morning." I smiled. "I guess we have some work to do today huh?" I asked. He looked a little confused. "We finally have the crystal, Draco. Now we have to destroy it. I have no idea how to. Do you?"

"No, I don't. We have to move locations today. They'll be looking for us." I nodded. "But first…" He lifted me closer to him and kissed me. I smiled and kissed him back. I slowly threaded my fingers into his hair. He sighed wrapping his arms more closely around me for a moment, before easing up and putting a hand on either side of my face. "C'mon love we have to get a move on." I sighed heavily, pressed one more kiss to his mouth, and then pushed up and off of the bed.

Draco and I quickly got ready for the day, and had a quick breakfast. I helped Draco pack up the tent and take down the wards, after that we joined hands and apparated off. We popped up somewhere that was green and very humid; I cocked an eyebrow at Draco. "It's a forest I used to frequent when I was younger." He said. I nodded. We began the process of setting up the tent and putting up wards again. It was going to be a long day, trying to figure out how to break the crystal.

* * *

 **AN: Chapter two... Getting into a little back story. Hopefully you guys liked it. Tell me what you think! Please review! Thanks! WS**


	3. Chapter 3

"Granger, you're all packed and ready to go?" Figgins asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be." I answered, setting my jaw and looking over at Draco. He was standing rigidly by the door to my office; his eyes looking everywhere except me.

"And Malfoy, how about you?" She turned to Draco.

"Yeah, ready to go mam." He answered.

"Hermione, you will choose the first location to apparate to. We will expect weekly updates on your mission; I've left details on how to do that with Draco. Good luck you two." She bowed her head and left my office.

"Alright Malfoy, I suppose we ought to get a move on." Draco nodded his head curtly. I held a hand out to him; he looked at it like it was poison. I gave an exasperated sigh. "Come on Malfoy." He reluctantly took my hand. I span on the spot, and when I opened my eyes we were in a national park I had once visited with my parents. Malfoy and I wordlessly started setting up camp. I started the protection incantations, and Draco set up the tent. It was like I was back out with Ron and Harry again. My spells complete I walked into the tent.

It was much more spacious, and quite a bit nicer than the last tent I had camped in. It was like a beautiful English cottage. Draco already had a fire going, and when I walked in the tent he turned towards me. He didn't say anything. "So…care to fill me in on this mission?" I asked.

"Right, sure." He sat in an armchair and gestured towards the chair next to him. I sat and Draco drew a sheaf of papers out a bag he was carrying. There was a picture of a crystal with some notes jotted around it. "This is the weapon that Orion is after. This crystal can be lethal in the wrong hands. It's called the Crystal of Elysia." The name resounded in my head. I had heard this name before.

"This doesn't exist. I've read about it. It was destroyed ages ago."

"Think again, bookworm." He said dryly. "It absolutely exists and we need to find it before the other side does. You're well read, and I am not shocked that you've heard about the crystal. You know what powers it is said to have?"

"Powers beyond imagining, super strength, enhanced magical prowess, increased mental focus. It's basically a catalyst for all the senses, to make a person super human."

"Correct. Orion is already very powerful. Imagine if he had something that made him even stronger. I hate to admit it, but you are a going to be a huge asset. Having your nose stuck in a book all those years is going to pay off."

"I don't know if there was a compliment in there somewhere or not. But it just so happens that I might have a book that can help us out." Draco gave what sounded like a half chuckle, a smirk on his face.

"Of course you do. If you want to get down to reading, I can make us something to eat." He stated.

"Okay, that sounds good." I honestly thought that Draco might poison me or something. But I had to at least try to trust him. I opened my bag, the same on that I had brought on the horcrux hunt, and accioed the book I would need. It was a book of lore. I flipped to the story about of the Crystal of Elysia, and starting reading. If I could find a lead on the last known whereabouts of the crystal, we could work from there.

* * *

My nose was dug once again in the book that contained the stories about the Crystal of Elysia. This time I was looking for a way to destroy it. I had tried everything I could think of to destroy the crystal, but nothing was working. Draco and I had both tried for hours to break the thing; I feared dark magic might be the only thing that would work.

Draco heaved into a seat next to me. "Find anything useful bookworm?" He asked, a smile lingering on his lips.

"Not yet." I sighed. I shut the book and rolled my head onto his shoulder. One of his arms came around me, and he gently massaged the base of my neck.

"We'll figure it out, love, we have to." I nodded.

"I know. I'm afraid that we might have to turn dark to end this." I whispered.

"You won't have to." His voice growled out. "I've been there before, I can do it again." I looked up at him sadly.

"We will try every other thing that we can first though. I don't want you using dark magic unless you absolutely have to." He ran a hand over my head soothingly.

"If anyone can figure it out, it's you." I rested my hand lightly on his side.

"I'll do my best." I promised. I felt him nod. I looked back up at him and brought a hand up to his face. He pressed a kiss to my palm, and grinned.

"Hungry love?" He asked. "Dinner is ready when you are." I smiled and pressed a quick kiss to his neck.

"Starving." I smiled. I stood and offered my hand to Draco to pull him up. He pulled me into a quick hug, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. We walked towards the kitchen and shared a nice meal. Draco could cook, which surprised me, he feigned hurt whenever I brought it up.

I knew sleep wouldn't come easy that night, as I puzzled over what to do about the stupid crystal we had obtained.

* * *

 **AN: Okaay. Chapter three. I've been getting pretty positive reviews on this so far. Thank you to anyone who has reviewed, followed or favourited this story! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. :) WS  
**


	4. Chapter 4

I had deduced the last known location of the crystal. Draco and I decided that was the best place to start, we apparated outside the town known to hold the crystal, and then set up camp. After camp was ready, and placed under heavy protective spells Draco and I took some polyjuice potion and ventured into town. We had to be careful, two strangers visiting a town that was by no means a tourist attraction, and asking questions…that could lead to trouble.

Draco assured me that he could be covert. "I've told you Granger, you're not the only one with a brain out here. I wasn't in Slytherin for no reason, you know." I paused to consider what he had said.

"Alright Malfoy, fair enough, just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. So let's go." We entered into the town pub, holding hands. We were acting as a couple on their honeymoon, backpacking through Britain. We sat up by the bar, where two old men were nursing pints. The barkeep, a surprisingly young man came our way with a smile.

"What can I get for you two?" He asked. Malfoy ordered a beer, and I ordered tea. The gents down the bar from us looked over with interest.

"It's not often we see new faces around here." One man said gruffly.

"We're on our honeymoon!" I gushed, smiling over at Malfoy.

"Backpacking around a bit, and this place was a must see." He grinned over at the men.

"A must see?" The other man asked. "Why is that?"

"Surely you know the rumors about this place." I giggled, going for a bit of a twit vibe. The men looked at one another, and then back at us.

"Rumors?" One of them asked.

"Mm, you know, about the men who come from this village. Awfully strong I hear." Malfoy was playing a bit dumb too. The men looked at each other again, a grin passed between the two.

"Not for ages lad. We were born and raised here; do we look strapping to you?" I had no idea how to respond. I giggled and looked over to Draco. He seemed to take the hint.

"I see no one frail around here." He replied with raised eyebrows. The men laughed.

"That's kind to say sonny. It is true that in my grandfather's time, men were strong and the women too. We've also produced many renowned scholars. "

"But not anymore?" I asked. The men seemed to be struggling with something.

"Would you two like to come to my house for dinner? The wife is making a roast, she'd be happy to meet you."

"That's generous of you." Draco replied. "We'd love a home cooked meal." He was better at this sort of thing than I imagined he would be.

"It's settled then. Let's finish our drinks, and we can all go back to my house." I exchanged a quick look with Malfoy, who smiled at me. I was thankful that we had brought more polyjuice potion with us, as this was clearly going to take more than an hour.

The dinner was good, we discovered our host to be named Austen Grey. His wife Miranda was more than welcoming. It wasn't until dessert was served that Austen got down to business. "You two are obviously here on business regarding the Crystal of Elysia." Draco and I looked at each other and then back at Austen.

"Yes." I answered. He nodded.

"It was here, but it hasn't been for two generations." He sighed. "We don't talk about this. It's dangerous. But the crystal was stolen."

"Stolen?" We asked in tandem.

"Yes. There was a German count, who frequented this town, and one day, he over took us, and stole the crystal."

"A German count, do you know his name?" I asked.

"Count Voss was his name. That's all I know." He sighed again. "I hope that my gut feeling about the two of you is correct. If that crystal falls into the wrong hands…we're all doomed."

"We can't say anything too much. But we are not working for the dark side, if you hear of someone else coming here, and asking for information on the crystal…it would be best to make sure they are misled." I made eye contact with Austen. He looked conflicted. But in the end he nodded his head.

"I'll keep an ear out." He finally said.

"Thank you." Draco said. He stood and offered his hand to Austen. "We must be on our way, but thank you for all of your help." I shook Austen's hand too.

"And thank you Miranda for this delicious dinner." She had been standing silently at the back of the room during our conversation, she looked uneasy but nodded at my compliment. We made our way out of the village, as soon as we got back to our campsite the polyjuice potion faded and we were back to our normal selves. I looked over at Draco; he had a smirk playing about his features.

"That went well." He said.

"I agree. Now we have to figure out where this Count Voss is from." Draco nodded.

"How do you plan on figuring that out?" He asked.

"We have contacts at the ministry. And I have a lot of books with me. He might be mentioned somewhere." I could see him wanting to make fun of me. But he reined it in.

"Let's try the ministry first. Save your eyes for when we need them." I smirked and raised an eyebrow.

"Alright, I'll write up a letter now."

* * *

Draco and I had spent another laborious day trying to destroy the Crystal. I was getting to the end of my rope with this. "Hermione calm down. You and the golden boys broke horcruxes; those have to be more powerful than this. How did you break those?"

"Basilisk fangs, and the sword of Gryffindor, it has absorbed basilisk venom, so essentially the same thing. But we don't have either of those."

"Maybe we could get them. If we could get to Hogwarts, and see the headmistress, or get into the chamber of secrets, we could obtain what we need."

"The only thing would be the sword of Gryffindor. I don't know parseltounge, do you?" He sighed and shook his head.

"McGonagall it is then." I looked over at him and took his hand. He drew me over to him and hugged me softly.

"I'll write her a letter. Hopefully we can get to Hogwarts later this week." I could feel him nodding, and he hugged me a little tighter.

* * *

 **AN: Alrighty, things are about to pick up on both tenses of the story. I'm wondering if it would be better if I alternated times chapter by chapter, so one chapter in the present and one in the past, or if how I'm writing it now is fine? Let me know! Thanks for the reviews, follows and favourites! Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. :) WS**


	5. Chapter 5

It turned out that Count Voss was from an obscure little place in the middle of a mountain range in Germany. This was going to be more difficult than Malfoy and I had thought. The village we had previously visited was like a city compared to where we were going. Luckily Malfoy knew German, so he could do all the talking. I found a handy translation spell so that I would be able to understand what everyone around me was saying.

We had changed our location twice since we found out about Count Voss, and we were finally ready to apparate to Germany. We set up camp on the outskirts of town, and downed some polyjuice potion, then made our way into the town. There was no pub in this town, but we did find a charming little restaurant, and decided that would be a good place to start. A perky young lady led us to a table and told us our server would be over soon.

It was weird hearing things through the translation spell; it was a three second delay on speech. I found it rather hard to keep up with conversations being held. Draco ordered us something to eat, the food was really good, but we learnt nothing of consequence at the restaurant. So we resolved to just wander around the town, acting like we were taking in the sights. It was strange sightseeing with Draco next to me, holding hands with him more often than not, still under the pretence that we were a couple on our honeymoon.

Dusk was nearing when an old woman walked our way. She smiled and gave us a small wave. Draco waved back and greeted her.

"What a lovely couple you are." She said. Draco smiled and thanked her. I acted like I had no idea what was going on.

"My wife doesn't speak German I'm afraid." He told her. The woman looked at me and smiled.

"Oh, how is it you know German, you have an accent."

"I have family that lives here in Germany. I used to stay with them in the summer, and I picked it up." He answered. "The wife and I are from England that would be my accent." He grinned. The old woman smiled and nodded.

"Well your German in excellent. I fear we are boring your wife though." Draco looked over to me.

"She is trying her best to pick up conversational German; I'm sure she finds this fascinating." The old woman made a face of doubt but shrugged.

"What brings a couple like you to a small village like this?" She asked.

"We just stumbled across it really; we were backpacking through the mountains, and happened across this charming place."

"You're well away from anywhere else; you must have been walking for quite some time."

"Yes and lucky we happened across here, our supplies are dwindling."

"Lucky." She agreed in a weird way. Something was off, something I couldn't put my finger on. "You'll want to make sure you see the Count's manor before you leave, one of the only things worth seeing around here."

"The Count's manor?" Draco asked.

"Yes, Count Voss is the only big thing to happen to this village. His manor is spectacular, I have a feeling the pair of you would find it interesting." She grinned.

"Thanks for the advice." Draco smiled back. The old woman waved and walked off. I looked over at Draco.

"I think we need to go back to camp and talk." I said under my breath. Malfoy nodded, and we set off circuitously through the village, to make sure we weren't being followed, before disappearing into our campsite. We walked into the living room and sat down. "There was something weird about that old lady." I said.

"I agree. This seems too easy. I think we should stay here for the night, plan our next step before we do anything. I feel uncomfortable here; the sooner we can leave the happier I'll be."

"For once Malfoy, you and I are in complete agreeance." I sighed and ran my hands over my face. This was going to be challenging.

* * *

McGonagall was quick to respond to my letter and agreed that Draco and I have use of the sword of Gryffindor, but thought that Draco and I coming to Hogwarts was ill-advised. She sent us co-ordinates and a date and time. I figured out the location, and Draco and I started planning. We decided that we would pack up camp, and apparate close to the meeting point with McGonagall. From there we would stake it out, and make sure that McGonagall was there, and alone.

It wasn't that I thought that Minerva would dupe us, but someone could have intercepted the mail. Draco and I were in a bad position and had to be really careful. I was drawn from my thoughts by Draco who was rubbing my shoulders. "You look tense." He said softly near my ear.

"With good reason I think." I answered.

"Everything is going to be fine." He assured me.

"I hope you're right." I sighed. Draco came around the chair and crouched in front of me.

"Of course I am. I'm not about to screw this assignment up, and there is no way I'll let anything happen to you." I attempted a smile.

"We won't let anything happen to each other." I corrected. Draco did smile. He leant in and gave me a quick kiss. He put a hand on either side of my face and looked at me seriously.

"We won't let anything happen to each other." He repeated. I couldn't help but smile at him. "There we go. I was hoping I could get a smile." I laughed lightly. I had no idea how, but somehow Draco Malfoy had become my rock.

* * *

 **A: Alright Alright! Chapter five. I've been feeling a bit of writers block, so hopefully this chapter is alright. Thanks so much for the reviews, follows, and favourites. Based on reviews I have decided to keep the writing form the same. Anyway, let me know what you thought of this chapter! Thanks for reading! WS**


	6. Chapter 6

We finally had a plan in place, Draco and I couldn't risk being seen in the village again, disguised or otherwise. We didn't have an invisibility cloak, so we had to settle on disillusionment charms. I did one on Draco, and he did one on me, and we set out again. Voss Manor was on the outskirts of the settlement, it was quite large, and there were guards posted by the door. I fished out a couple of Decoy Detonators from my pockets and threw one off in either direction. When they went off the guards looked at each other and then rushed off.

"Let's go." Draco whispered. We moved hastily up the front yard, and into the house. Luckily the front room was empty.

"Where should we start?" I whispered.

"I dunno, maybe we should split up?"

"No, no way! How will we find each other? We stay together. We should see if there is an office or a library. There has to be documentation"

"Right. I think the office is more likely. I want to stay on the main level if possible." I felt Draco's hand brush against me. "If you want to stick together, we have to make sure we are going the same way." I nodded and realized he couldn't see me.

"Right." I joined hands with him and we quietly started making our way through the main level. We came across the library first. We decided it was prudent to search it since we had found it. I found a bunch of interesting things, that given time, I would love to have a better look at, but nothing pertaining to the crystal. We made our way through the main level, and found nothing, we had to bite the bullet and go up a level. The first level didn't turn anything up, so we went up another level.

We found an office on the second level, but again, it turned up nothing. We methodically searched the bedrooms, and when we reached what looked like the master bedroom I was starting to get frustrated. That's when we hit the jackpot. Under the bed in a secret compartment we found Count Voss's journal. I handed it to Draco who stuck it inside his jacket, so that it was disillusioned. Now all we had to do was get out of the house. This proved to be the tricky part, as the two guards outside had called in back up, they realized they had been duped. We could hear them searching about on the level below.

"What are we going to do?" I asked. I looked around the room; there were balcony doors, so I pulled Draco toward them.

"What are you doing?"

"We are going to escape off of the balcony." I replied. I think Draco started to laugh, but then we heard footsteps on the stairs.

"Balcony it is." He whispered. He helped me wrench the door open, and closed again. "This trellis looks a little rackety. I don't see what other choice there is though. I'll go down first." I could see the trellis shaking and soon enough heard Draco tell me he had reached the ground. I swung my leg over the bannister and started clambering down. I heard something snap, and felt myself falling. I resisted the urge to scream, knowing that it would draw the guards. I braced myself from a painful landing, but it never came. "Are you okay?" Draco whispered. He had caught me. I was thankful that he couldn't see my face. I felt a blush creeping up my neck.

"I'm fine, thank you. Let's get going." Draco started walking. "You can put me down you know?" He chuckled lightly.

"Right, sorry." He put me down; it was then that I realized there were guards swarming the perimeter. "Crap." I heard Draco swear under his breath. I looked around trying to find some way out, and saw nothing.

"What are we going to do?" I whispered.

"I don't know." We looked around helplessly.

* * *

Draco and I were stationed at our lookout point waiting for McGonagall to appear. I couldn't quite put my finger on why I felt uneasy, but I did. When the prearranged time came around, McGonagall appeared. I looked at Draco and he nodded. We had decided that he would stay hidden, and have my back if anything went awry. I squeezed his hand, and then stood, walking towards my old professor.

"Hermione." She smiled when she saw me approaching.

"Professor." I greeted back.

"I'm not your professor anymore. I am glad that you thought to contact me for help though." She drew the sword of Gryffindor from somewhere inside her cloak, I wondered at what kind of pocket she would need to hold something that big and sharp. "You can keep this for now. I'll gladly take it back when things settle down."

"Thank you, this means a lot to me. Stay safe." I took the sword and a handshake from the older woman.

"I'm more worried about your safety." She replied. I nodded and quickly made my way back to Draco. We watched as McGonagall apparated off.

"I hope she doesn't catch any trouble from this." I whispered. Draco put an arm around me.

"She'll be fine. We have to move." I looked at him in confusion. It was then that I heard the footsteps. Draco spun on the spot and just like that, we were gone. I had no idea where our new location was, but we set up camp and our wards as usual.

"Right, let's destroy this crystal."

* * *

 **AN: Okay a little bit more of an action chapter, as the next one will be too. Thanks for reading, and reviewing, and following, and adding this story as a favourite! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, let me know what you thought! :) WS**


	7. Chapter 7

The only option open to Draco and I was to look for a gap in guards and leg it. We had to wait for about five minutes before we found a gap, and then we had to race like crazy. Unfortunately Draco bumped one of the guards we were passing and got everyone on high alert. We were still invisible, so there were curses firing after us like crazy. I had my hand bunched into Draco's jacket, following him so we wouldn't get separated, so I knew when Draco got hit by a stunning spell and fell over. Luckily there was so much commotion that no one heard the thud when he hit the ground. I swore under my breath. Draco was too heavy to carry, and the guards were quickly coming towards us.

I suppose it was lucky that I had experience acting under pressure. I quickly shot up a shielding spell around us; I cast a levitation spell on Draco and ran as hard as I could away from the oncoming guards. My throat and legs were burning, breathing was becoming a chore and I knew I was not going to make it back to camp and scrambled to think of something else. I grabbed back on to Draco and ended the levitation spell. I quickly span on the spot and apparated to the first place I could think of. It was the field where the quidditch world cup had been held. I knew it was probable that the guards had set up spells to trace apparition back in the German town, so I apparated again, this time to a lake my parents had taken me to as a child.

I stopped and made Draco and myself visible. I checked Draco over quickly, it looked like he had just been hit by a stunning spell, so I cast a rennervate on him. His eyes opened slowly and his face contorted in pain. "Are you alright?" I asked him. His eyes flicked over to me and his breath hitched oddly.

"What happened?" He asked. I was still catching my breath, so I breathed for a minute.

"You got hit with a stunning spell. I tried to get back to camp, but I couldn't. So I apparated us away, and then woke you up." Draco nodded.

"Are you okay?" He asked. I nodded.

"I got out without even a scratch." I assured him.

"Good." He sighed. "We'll have to get back to camp, and then relocate again." I nodded.

"I just need to catch my breath." Draco nodded.

"That was good thinking on your part. Thanks for getting us out of there."

"You're welcome. But it was nothing, just something I had to do."

"You didn't have to save me. You would have been quicker if you left me there." I furrowed my brows in confusion.

"That thought never even occurred to me."

"Of course it didn't." He muttered.

"And you're unhappy about that?" I asked him.

"No, if you were the kind of person who thought about that, I would probably be dead." He sighed and sat up. "Are you good to go now?" He asked.

"Yeah, we really do need to get back to camp." Draco stood and offered me a hand up. I took it, and as soon as I was standing, he apparated us back to Germany, just outside our campsite. He pulled us quickly inside the protective barriers. We quickly packed up and took down the wards, Draco spun us off again, and just in case apparated us away again. We landed in a forest that was big and foreboding. It reminded me of the forbidden forest. "Where are we?"

"One of parent's estates is in this forest."

"What do they come here to do? Lurk?" I asked. Draco smirked.

"Something like that." He answered. He started throwing up the protective wards, so I started setting up the tent. Once everything was set up, and safe Draco walked up to me and handed me the battered old diary we had risked our lives to get. "I figured you would have first dibs on reading it."

"I would love to, but there is one problem there."

"It's in German." Draco answered.

"It's in German." I agreed.

"Well then I will read it." He smirked.

"I'll make dinner. Tell me as soon as you read anything that might help us." Draco made some kind of noise of agreement. I went into the kitchen and started making dinner, hating the fact that I had never bothered to learn German.

* * *

"Do we really have to do this?" Draco asked. "What if we use the crystal first, and then we can destroy it with our bare hands." I smiled and smacked him lightly on the arm.

"Shut it, let's just finish this already." We had the crystal sitting on a flat stone, and Draco was wielding the sword. He advanced towards it and with an air of hesitation, brought the blade down on the crystal. A bright blue light erupted from it, and it shattered into a million pieces and then the pieces dissolved. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good job Draco." He slung an arm over my shoulder, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

"What now?" He asked.

"I think that we should hide this sword somewhere safe, I don't trust there isn't a locator spell on it. We should relocate camp, and send a letter off to the ministry." And then I looked at him with a grin. "And then of course, we should celebrate." I laughed.

"I think we should just skip right to the celebrating." He grinned and winked at me. His face lowered to mine and he kissed me soundly. I put my arms around him and gave into the kiss for a minute.

"We need to get going Draco." He groaned, but nodded and pulled away from me. We hid the sword in a hollowed out tree that we put a myriad of protective spells on. I also put a spell on it, so that we would be able to find the tree again, and then we packed up camp. We apparated off to a lakeside and set up camp again. Once everything was set up I wrote a letter to the ministry and told them we had destroyed the crystal. Draco had become impatient and lifted me into his arms kissing me soundly before carrying me off to the bedroom.

* * *

 **AN: Alright chapter seven, the story is finally picking up. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! :) Please leave me a review I love them. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, followed, or added this story to the favourites. Thanks fro reading! WS  
**


	8. Chapter 8

"Granger, it is so unfortunate that you don't know German. This is a fantastic read." Draco had been ribbing me for the last day and a half. He had already read through the journal once, and was on a second read-through. Apparently it was the most interesting thing in the world.

"Well instead of being such a prat, you could translate it for me, or just tell me what you've found out."

"What would I do for fun then?" He asked. I scoffed.

"I repeat, prat." I chucked a pillow at his head. He caught it deftly and chucked it back at me. "You do at least need to tell me what you've learned from the journal if nothing else." Draco sighed and looked at me over the journal.

"I'm trying to read here bookworm. Surely you understand how annoying it is when you're trying to read and someone just keeps bothering you. I've lost my place three times now."

"You are hysterical." I huffed. He had a glint in his eye and a smirk on his face.

"Alright Granger, I'll tell you." He groaned dramatically and set the book down on the coffee table. "Alright, so Count Voss was busy being all evil and powerful, when he fell in love with a beautiful witch, she was young, and vivacious, and the apple of Count Voss' eye. Unfortunately for Count Voss, she didn't know he existed. He threw himself into pursing her. Eventually she fell victim to his wiles, they got married, and right after they got married, the Count grew ill, a mysterious illness that eventually took his life. My thought is that the gorgeous witch also had brains to go with her looks, and was after the crystal."

"I'd say that's a reasonable conclusion. What was her name?" I asked.

"Elizabeth Sladen."

"That doesn't sound very German."

"Indeed not."

"Is there anything else in the journal we could use to track her down? Is there any other valuable information in there?"

"There is some stuff about Elizabeth in here. I wish you knew German, it would be nice to know that I'm not missing anything."

"What if you read it out to me? Translate it as best you can, and I'll take notes on it." Draco looked conflicted.

"I suppose that could work." He nodded. I stood and fetched a notebook from a bookshelf nearby and sat down with a pen in hand to take notes. "Oh, we're doing this now?" He asked.

"You have something better to do?" I asked.

"No. You're right." He picked up the book, and opened it, starting from the beginning again. The journal started from before Count Voss had the crystal. How he had come to learn about it, and how he hatched the plan to steal it. How he obtained it, and used the power of it for his benefit. Then we got into the bit about Elizabeth. She was English, and from Draco's reading, I deduced, very calculating.

"She knew he existed." I commented. "There is no way, even in a town this small she could be everywhere like that unless she wanted him to see her." Draco made an affirmative noise. I gestured for him to go on reading. He read a rather interesting passage about travelling to Banff to frequent her parents lodge there. "Banff…where is that?" I asked.

"In Canada, up in the Rocky Mountains, it's a beautiful place." He replied.

"You've been there?"

"Once, we got invited to a Christmas party there one year."

"It would be cool if we got to go there." I sighed. Draco smirked and continued reading. The writing got harder to understand, the Count was getting worse, and then out of nowhere, the writing stopped. "That was an interesting read, thank you for translating for me."

"You're welcome. So what do we do now? I didn't pick up on all that many leads." I shrugged.

"I didn't either, I think it's obvious that that Elizabeth was after the crystal, and probably got it. We should send off a letter to the ministry and see if they can get any information on her. If that comes up blank, we might have to go to Canada." I pulled a piece of paper towards myself and wrote out a note to the ministry. Draco stood and made his way towards the kitchen. I heard him clanging around in there for a minute or two before he came out with two bowls of some kind of rice dish. He set one in front of me and sat across from me with his own bowl. "Thank you."

"Sure." He answered. It was weird but Draco and I were becoming friends.

* * *

The ministry had responded jubilantly to the news that the crystal was destroyed. They advised that we stay in hiding. There was a bounty on our head apparently. The other side knew that people had been sniffing around for the crystal, not necessarily that we had destroyed it, but it would be safer if we stayed hidden. Draco seemed just fine with it, and I wasn't all that upset. At the beginning of this mission I would rather have been anywhere else, but now there was no one I would rather spend time with.

It was fall and the air was crisp, and smelt like leaves falling. Now that we had found the crystal and done away with it, it was almost like we were on vacation. We were sitting under a tree that was in our campsite, under a blanket, reading one of my favourite books. I was leaning up against Draco's side, and I felt truly happy, for the first time in a long time. I gazed up at Draco, and when he felt my eyes on him, he stopped reading and looked at me. I grinned, he smiled back. His hand came up to the side of my face, his thumb running over my cheek. "I'm glad that we get some down time." Draco said softly.

"Me too." I leaned up and kissed him, his arms came around me pulling me closer to him. When the kiss ended, I settled my head against his neck, my arms came around him as well, and we just sat under the tree wrapped in each other. "What do you think is going to happen now?" I asked.

"I don't know. But whatever it is, we'll get through it together." He said, pulling me closer to him. I sighed, my chest got tight, and I sighed, trying to relieve the tension I suddenly felt. I leant back slightly.

"I never would have thought that you and I would be in this position." I said. Draco grinned and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

"Thirteen year old Draco would be furious with me." He agreed. I laughed.

"Do you remember when we were thirteen and I punched you in the face?"

"I try not to remember that. Crabbe and Goyle made fun of me for weeks after that." He sighed. "I deserved it though."

"Yes, you did." I kissed his cheek quickly where I remembered punching him. "I'm still sorry though." He grinned and brought one of my hands up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to my palm.

"I think we've both let go of the past, otherwise we wouldn't be here." I nodded and settled my head back against his neck.

"Of course, you're right." I pressed a kiss to his neck. "We should head inside, it's getting cold." Draco stood and pulled me to my feet. My life was different than I had ever dreamed it would be, but for the moment, I was completely content.

* * *

 **AN: I'm feeling a little writers block on this story right now. I'm not sure where to take it next. Anyway... I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I chucked in a little fluff at the end, because who doesn't like fluff? :P Thanks for the reviews, favs, and follows! Please leave me a review, I love them! Hope you enjoyed! WS  
**


	9. Chapter 9

The ministry had sent us a whole package on Elizabeth Sladen. She was an interesting character to be sure. She was involved in quite a few lurid affairs and it was a fact that she immigrated to Canada in the later years of her life. I was excited at the prospect of going to Canada; I'd never been there before. Unfortunately we could not just apparate to Canada, it was too great a distance, and once there we would have to seek out a consulate to getting apparating permits for that country. Having the support of our ministry would of course make it easier.

They mailed us a portkey disguised as a shoe that would take us to the east coast of Canada, not far from the Canadian magical consulate. It gave us a day to prepare, pack up all of stuff and plan what we would do after getting our permits. Obviously time was of the essence, but apparating over great distances was painful and dangerous. We would not want to apparate from the east coast to the mountains in the west of Canada.

Draco and I wrote out a schedule and then packed up camp. We waited with a hand each on the shoe sent to us. At three in the afternoon sharp, it glowed and the pulled us off the ground. Using a portkey was uncomfortable business, but soon enough the yanking sensation eased up and we landed, Draco gracefully on his feet, and I less gracefully on my bum. I could see Draco holding in a laugh as he held his hand out to me. "Nice one Granger." He smirked. I took his outstretched hand and he pulled me up.

"Thanks Malfoy, you know I used to be in ballet. I think that's where my grace comes from." I said sardonically.

"Yeah those lessons really paid off." He chuckled. I swatted him lightly on the arm.

"Why don't we stop talking about me, and how graceful I am and start looking for the consulate?" Draco nodded and held a hand out to me. I raised an eyebrow.

"I've been to this consulate before, I can apparate us there, it won't be far, and we won't get a penalty for apparating to get there." He said.

"Are you sure?" I asked. He nodded, I sighed and reluctantly grabbed onto his hand. He quickly turned and when I opened my eyes we were in a building that slightly resembled the ministry. We were only in there for a short time; we had no problem obtaining apparition permits. Draco, being more familiar with Canada than I was, was our designated guide. We walked to the apparating point in the ministry and I took Draco's hand. We were apparating to Quebec, and camping just outside of Montreal for the night. Draco confidently apparated us off, and when we landed we quickly and quietly set up camp. Draco cooked us dinner while I came up with a plan for what we would do when we did get to Banff.

I knew that we had to find the entrance to the magical district, and then find the hotel that belonged to Elizabeth's parents, but past that I had no clue. If the hotel had been remodelled and renamed we were in trouble. If it hadn't and we got there but there was a new owner with no connections to the Sladen's we were in trouble again. I decided that seeking out the town registries was our best bet if the hotel lead failed us. I would have to figure out where that was as well. I sighed and ran a hand over my face in frustration; I closed my eyes and tried to think.

Draco setting food in front of me prompted me to open my eyes. "Calm down Granger. We will figure this out." He said. I blinked a couple of times at him.

"You know Draco, seeing as we won't soon be leaving each other's company perhaps we could switch to a first name basis?" Draco nodded.

"Right then Hermione, eat some food and then let's get some sleep, we will worry about what to do in Banff when we get to Banff, yeah?"

"Yeah." I agreed. "Thanks for dinner Draco."

"You're welcome Hermione."

* * *

I was starting to worry that the ministry was never going to contact us. It had been three weeks since the crystal had been destroyed and still there were no further instructions for us. When I pointed it out to Draco he just shrugged. "They might be cooking up another mission for us, or preparing a safe house, or perhaps because our job is done they no longer care about us." I threw a disgruntled look at him and he grinned. "Come on Hermione, lighten up. They'll contact us sooner or later." We were in the kitchen, Draco standing by the window, and me by the entrance to the kitchen.

"It's not funny Draco; I want to know what is happening out there! We haven't received any updates or anything. The ministry could've fallen for all we know." Draco sighed and walked over to me.

"Give it another week okay? If we still haven't heard anything we can write the ministry. I'm not too keen to get back to the real world. Who knows if they'll keep us together or not?" He frowned at the last bit. I reached out my hand and rested it on the side of his face.

"There's no way they'd separate us after this. Besides there is no way I'd go along with that." I smiled, Draco smiled back.

"I imagine you would make quite the scene."

"You imagine correctly. But you're right, let's not worry, and be thankful for the time that we do have together now." Draco leant forward and kissed me softly; I melted into his kiss and wished that the moment would never end. Draco leaned back, a smile playing about his features.

"You know, I kind of hope they've forgotten us. I could happily stay this way for years." I smiled and kissed him.

"That's sweet Draco. Sweet, but impossible, I'll take this week if nothing else." Draco gave me a sober look before pressing his lips back on mine. I relaxed my body into his and hoped that whatever the ministry was planning wouldn't get between us.

* * *

 **AN: Heeeey. Hopefully this chapter is alright. I'm looking forward to this next chapter. Thank you guys for all the support I've gotten for this story so far, all the reviews and favs and follows mean a lot to me. Sooooo drop me a review and let me know what you thought of this chapter! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! WS  
**


	10. Chapter 10

When Draco and I got moving the next day it was still quite early in the morning. Draco had a picture of the next place we were apparating to. We were going to be apparating twice that day over two long distances. I would apparate first, and then Draco, after that we would have to stop and rest. I studied the picture, hoping it would be enough to get us where we needed to go. When the camp was disassembled Draco stood with his hand out to me. For some reason, feeling his hand in mine was reassuring. "You can do it Hermione." He said. I nodded. I focused on the three D's and we popped off. We landed; I swayed a little on the spot. Draco reached out a hand to steady me.

"I'm okay." I told him, he still kept his hands on my elbows.

"We'll wait here for a couple of minutes before we apparate again, let you catch your balance." I looked around. We were in a forest somewhere in Manitoba. I registered that Draco was still holding on to me. He seemed to realize at the same time. I looked up at him, and he looked directly back. For some reason I felt like I was going to blush. We heard a snapping noise to our left and both of us snapped out of whatever we were thinking. Draco pulled me closer and then popped off. We sprang up in a field somewhere in eastern Alberta. Draco let go of me quickly and started setting up safety wards. I set up the tent and soon both of us were inside of it, plunked on opposite couches.

"I didn't know that apparating could be so tiring." I sighed. "Thankfully we only have to do it once tomorrow." Draco groaned from across the room.

"It'll be me doing the apparating we need your brain tomorrow. At least it isn't as far." I stood and went towards the kitchen. I quickly made us something to eat, and brought a plate out to Draco. He grumbled thanks to me before scarfing down his food. "Are you ready for tomorrow?" He asked. I nodded.

"I want to get apparated into Banff, and then I think we should use transfiguration charms on each other. After that you can get us into magical Banff, and we'll start our search for information on Elizabeth." Draco nodded. We were both silent for a while, my mind snapped back to when Draco and I had first apparated, when he was steadying me and our eyes caught. I was curious what that was about. I wasn't sure if I should bring it up though. Before I could decide if I wanted to bring it up, Draco spoke.

"Hermione?" He asked.

"Yes Draco?"

"Uhm, earlier, back when we first apparated, what was that?"

"Strange, I was just going to ask you about that." I responded, he quirked an eyebrow at me. "I don't know what it was, for me anyway, you?" He gave a shrug.

"Probably just some weird trick of the mind, we have been spending a whole lot of time with each other."

"Surprisingly it hasn't been that bad." I said. Draco chuckled.

"I'm also a little shocked. I thought we would kill each other."

"I guess we've both grown up quite a bit since Hogwarts." I said. Draco nodded. "I'm kind of glad that I'm getting to see this side of you." I admitted. Suddenly Draco was on his feet; he walked towards me, and pulled me up. His eyes were gazing into mine again. I felt confused, and lost in the mercurial depths of his eyes. My breathing was speeding up; Draco was coming in closer to me, my eyes fluttered closed just as Draco's lips made contact with mine. His hands slid up my back and pulled me a little closer to him. I rose onto my toes and grabbed onto Draco's arms. My head was completely fogged up by the heat that was being created by Draco and me.

It was as if both of us came to our senses at once and pushed away from each other. We were both breathing heavily. I looked over at Draco, confusion written all over my face. "Interesting." Draco laughed.

"Interesting?" I asked. He nodded.

"Do you disagree?"

"No, I absolutely agree with that."

"Wanna try it again?" He asked a glint in his eye.

"Perhaps not right now, that was a little confusing for me." Draco nodded.

"Well I thoroughly enjoyed that so…" He trailed off. "You're better at that than I would have expected." He added.

"I don't know how I should take that." I answered. Draco just grinned and shrugged, walking off down the hallway into the bathroom. I groaned and ran my hands over my face. I flopped onto the couch, my head in disarray over what had just happened.

* * *

The ministry had finally owled us, and gave us directions to a safe house. We were given a specific time to get there by; the secret keeper would be waiting for us there. I was kind of on the edge the night before we were supposed to be leaving for the safe house.

"Hermione, just calm down." Draco said for about the millionth time that night. I tried, I really did, but I was nervous.

"I feel really stupid." I said. "I was so sketched out that the ministry hadn't contacted us, and now that they have I'm also freaking out. How moronic is that?" I was pacing up and down in the living room; Draco was sitting on one of the couches, watching me tiredly.

"It's not stupid." He said. He grabbed my hips as I walked past, and drew me down onto his lap. "We have been safely hiding away here in our own little world. And now we have to go back to the real world, it makes total sense to me that you are feeling nervous love." He pressed a kiss to my temple. I burrowed into his side and sighed. "We'll be fine Hermione, there is no way that I'll let anything happen, or let them separate us." The determination in his voice comforted me.

"I love you." I whispered.

"I love you too." He responded. He tilted my chin up, and pressed a kiss to my lips. I smiled into the kiss and for the moment, forgot about the outside world, and let Draco comfort me.

* * *

 **AN: Sorry for the delay in this update. I'm kind of struggling with this plot line right now. But here it is anyway. I think I might have rushed the kiss, however, I kind of like this chapter. Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading! WS  
**


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: Just a warning that I have bumped up the rating on this fic. It's not too graphic, but enough that I thought the rating should change.**

The next morning I woke up in my bed, and my mind immediately flew back to the events of the day before. Draco looming over me, an intense look in his eyes, the feeling of his lips gliding over mine; I sighed. How was I supposed to face him with these feelings roiling around inside of me? I listened carefully for sounds of Draco moving about, I heard nothing. I quickly got out of bed and rushed to the bathroom, scrubbing my teeth and face, before making my way back to my room. Unfortunately, I had neglected to listen for Draco, and I promptly ran into him upon exiting the bathroom.

I collided into his arms, and he reached out to steady me. He flashed a smile at me. "Morning Hermione, fancy bumping into you here." His voice had a slight purr in it. "You know, I had a dream about you last night." I blinked a couple of times.

"Oh? I didn't even think about you last night." Draco grinned wider.

"Keep telling yourself that." He laughed. He pushed me up against the wall, his arms pinned to either side of me, his eyes looking at me with some indefinable look. I had no idea where all of the ardor was coming from, but I was becoming powerless to stop it. I hadn't really realized my growing attraction to Draco, and now it was consuming me. Rather than over thinking it, I decided to give into it. I fisted my hands into Draco's shirt and pulled him closer to me. His lips met mine with force, he lifted me up and I wrapped my legs firmly around his waist. He groaned and I felt a moan building at the back of my throat, it released as his mouth parted from mine, and he started trailing kisses down my throat. He nipped quickly at my collar bone, and brought a fresh noise of pleasure from me.

His hands slid up my torso, gently cupping my breasts, I pushed more fully into his hands, earning a groan from Draco. "Dammit Hermione." He growled out breathlessly, "I should've done this sooner." I shook my head at him. He raised an eyebrow.

"We would've been highly ineffectual at our mission I think." I answered. Draco laughed lightly. He dipped his head down for another kiss. I gave into for a minute before placing my hands on his shoulders and pushing back. "Making my point for me, we have a lot to do today." I said. Draco shrugged.

"It can wait for a couple of hours, or a day." He whispered. My head said no, loudly, but my body was screaming yes. I arched into Draco, which he took as a signal to continue. His hands slid under my thighs and he carted me off toward his room. Before I knew it I was pinned under Draco on the bed, my mind floating off in bliss.

* * *

When I awoke later that day and checked the clock on Draco's bedside table, it was nearing noon. I tried really hard to care, but being wrapped up as I was in Draco, it was hard to. He had his arms perfectly around me, his body radiating the perfect amount of warmth. Eventually I heard his breathing pick up, his eyes blinked open, and he looked at me and grinned. "Hey." He rumbled.

"Hey."

"So, are you angry that we are behind schedule?" He asked with an evil looking smirk. I contemplated it for a second or two.

"No." His smirk turned into a genuine smile.

"Good." He shifted to pull me flush on top of him. I ran my fingers slowly through his hair, my eyes taking in his face slowly. "What are you thinking about?" He asked. I smiled and dipped my head down to his, kissing him soundly.

* * *

The time had finally come, Draco and I apparated off to the safe house, there was a ministry official there. I knew him by appearance only. "Nice to see you two in one piece." He said. "Auror Lester at your service." He said with a quick smile.

"Thanks, it's a relief to stop living out of a tent." I said with a grin. The Auror got us into the safe house.

"Now then, this house is set up for two, if you should wish to have separate safe houses that can be arranged; it would take a couple of days though."

"No. This will be fine." Draco said with finality. The auror looked between us before nodding.

"Kingsley said he will be in tomorrow to have a chat with you." He must have seen the look on my face, because he amended. "Just to see how the mission really went and talk some things over with the pair of you."

"Thank you Auror Lester." I said. He nodded and stepped out the doors. I look at Draco relief sketched onto my features.

"Didn't I tell you everything would be fine?" He asked with a smile.

"Yes. And I should have known better than to freak."

"Oh well." He said. He drew me into his arms and held onto me, my ear hovering over his heart, picking up the slow, constant rhythm. "Well, what do you say we break this house in, huh?" He asked, a mischievous grin playing over his features. I grinned.

"You, Mr. Malfoy have read my mind." His face lightened and he easily picked me up and wrapped my legs around him.

"Now where do you suppose the bedroom is in the house?" I laughed.

"Who needs a bedroom?" I asked, Draco quirked an eyebrow at me. He brought his face in close to my ear, and gently bot down on my earlobe.

"Naughty."

* * *

 **AN: I'm happy with my speedy update, but not too sure about the events of this chapter... Please please let me know what you think! Hope you've enjoyed so far! WS**


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: A reminder that this fic is rated M for a reason!**

* * *

I awoke the next morning a little confused. Firstly, I was not wearing any clothing, secondly, there was someone else in bed with me, and thirdly, I felt deeply, deeply satisfied. The events of the previous day filtered back into my mind. Draco finding me outside of the bathroom, and pinning me to the wall, being carried to his bedroom… I sighed unconsciously. "Is that a sigh of contentment?" a voice asked from my right. I popped my eyes open and looked over at Draco.

"What do you think?" I asked with a grin. The day before had been totally wasted. Draco and I completely absorbed by one another, leaving his bedroom only to eat and use the bathroom.

"I think I would doubt my prowess if it wasn't a contented noise." He laughed.

"Well Draco, your prowess is undoubtable."

"Yesterday was…pretty amazing Hermione. If I'd have known that you were so good at that I would've made a move way sooner. You of course have no excuse for not making a move; you knew I'd be amazing." I laughed.

"You're so full of yourself. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I used to hate you." I shrugged.

"Oh, that…well that doesn't seem to be a deterrent any longer. What can I say; I was an idiot when I was younger."

"We're both quite different of our school days, I would say. But enough of this banter. We have work to do today. We lost a whole day yesterday." Draco made some indefinable noise and I looked back towards him.

"You know Hermione the whole world won't end if we take a couple of days off."

"You don't know that. I can't justify two days without any progress towards the crystal." Draco groaned, wanting to hear none of it. He deftly pulled me onto his chest and laid a kiss on my shoulder, slowly working his way up my neck. He hit a spot just behind my ear that had me humming in contentment.

"Interesting." He quipped before resuming his ministrations. His lips skimmed my jaw and then slowly made their way to mine. I gave in for a minute before pulling back and resting the fingers of left hand on his chin.

"No, no, no, no! We have to get up." Draco raised his eyebrows and grinned.

"I'm already up." I smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

"You're so gross. You know that is _not_ what I meant! You can take care of yourself, I'm going to go shower." I threw in the last bit as incentive to get him up. Hoping he would take the bait. It worked like a charm.

"Well maybe you could do both? Take care of me, and shower." He waggled his eyebrows. I swallowed my laugh; he had played right into my ploy.

"Genius, why didn't I think of that?"

"Oh Granger, I'm absolutely sure you did." I grinned. Draco suddenly rolled on top of me, and then stood, picking me up seemingly effortlessly as he did. Having got my way I smiled and leaned in kissing him as he walked us towards the bathroom. He fumbled with the door handle, and then with the shower controls. He sat me lightly on the vanity while we waited for the shower to heat up. His hands found my breasts and he kneaded them gently, eliciting a noise of pleasure from the back of my throat. I felt Draco's lips turn up against mine in response to the noise. One of his hands slid down my side and came to rest high on my thigh, his fingers tickling lightly.

My hands were fisted in his hair and as his fingers slid down the inside my thigh and higher up, my hands clenched harder. Suddenly his hand withdrew, both from my inner thigh and from my chest, and came to rest on my rib cage. I made a disgruntled noise and opened my eyes, glaring at Draco. He laughed. "Well task-master, it looks as though you are off task." He grinned. I blushed a bit at the comment, and his grin grew. "I find it oddly pleasing that I can distract you like that."

"Bringing my mind back to the task at hand, I'd say the shower has warmed up by now." There was water vapour swirling in the air around us. I saw no way to bypass Draco and get to the shower unless he backed away from me. His eyes were glazed watching me and he grinned seeing that I saw no way out of his grasp.

"Don't worry Lion; I intend to comply with your wants." He wrapped his arms snugly around my ribcage and lifted me, my legs going around his waist instinctually. He stepped into the shower and pushed me into the shower wall. The hot water pouring over me added to the sensations I was feeling. Draco's very skilled mouth was playing with the sweet spot behind my ear, causing sounds of pleasure to roll out of my mouth. Draco's hips rolled into mine in response to the noises I was making. I gasped loudly, and again I could feel Draco smile against my skin, clearly enjoying the effect he had on me.

"Draco, you're driving me crazy." I stuttered out.

"That's certainly the intention darling." He laughed. "However we need your mind, so let me help you."

* * *

Draco and I did eventually get clean in the shower, and get out of it, and eventually dressed. We ate hurriedly and then packed up camp so I could apparate us to Banff. "We're behind schedule now Draco." I muttered as we landed in the idyllic looking town. We were in a back alley; we had transfigured our appearances before we apparated. Draco looked highly unlike himself and it was weird hearing his voice come from his transfigured mouth when he spoke.

"Sorry Hermione, but you know…it isn't my entire fault. And you make it hard by being so…" He trailed off and I raised an eyebrow.

"I make it hard by being so what?" I asked.

"By being so irresistible." He grinned at me in a smarmy fashion. I rolled my eyes.

"Enough flattery for the day Draco, we have work to do. You know how to get into the magical part of Banff right?" I asked.

"I do, yes, let's get going." Finally feeling back on track, Draco and I headed off to see what we could find out about Elizabeth Sladen.

* * *

Draco and I were settling into life at the safe house. We were regularly updated by ministry officials, and not living out of a tent was pretty sweet. But I was growing restless sitting around doing nothing. I resolved to talk to Kingsley the next time he checked in. Draco and I were in the library, my head was resting in his lap and he was reading some sort of scroll. He finished up his reading and looked down at my face. "What are you thinking about Lion?" I grinned at the nickname. He had been using it for a while now, but it was a very infrequent thing.

"I'm bored." I answered. He had a funny look on his face after I said that. "Not with you, just with this. There is nothing to do here. It was nice winding down from our task, and just getting to spend alone time with you, without the pressing feeling that we were falling behind. Now I feel restless. I want to do something." He looked thoughtful for a moment.

"I get that." He said at length.

"I'm planning on talking to Kingsley next time he comes to check on us."

"Whatever you want Hermione. Just know that if you're going off and doing missions, I'm coming with you." I smiled up at him and reached a hand up to his face.

"Of course Draco, I wouldn't want to go anywhere without you. We make a good team." He smiled and leant down, kissing me.

"Who would've thought it?" He asked when he pulled away.

"Not me." I grinned. He lightly brushed a few hairs out of my eyes, a tender look crossing his face.

"I love you." I was still getting used to hearing that sweet phrase slip from Draco's lips.

"I love you too, Draco." I sat up and kissed him quickly before melting into his side. I felt so right, with his arm around me, moulded perfectly into his body, my head resting on his shoulder. I never knew that my feelings for a person could change so drastically. But I was happy that they had.

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 **AN: Alright guys, I know it has been ages since I updated this puppy. If you read any of my other fics you'll know that I've been slammed with writers block. Absolute lack of inspiration. But it seems to be clearing. This chapter is a little longer for you to make up for my lack of updates. I kinda like this chapter, but there are a few things I'd like your opinions on. Firstly the nickname Lion, too cheesy? Secondly is the relationship advancing too fast, or not making sense? I'm also kind of unsure about the 'love' scenes I don't normally write them in any depth. I hope they are done all right. If you're still with me through this authors note, I'd like say thanks to everyone who reads, favorites, follows, or comments on this story. The feed back that I get is awesome, and it really motivates me! :) Thanks for reading guys, hope you enjoyed! ~WS  
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	13. Chapter 13

Draco had led us into the magical district of Banff, and I tried to compose my face. It was one of the most decadent, and awe inducing places I had ever seen. All of the building fronts seemed to be made of marble, with gleaming gold plaques stating their addresses. The cobblestone street glistened in the light. Draco seemed to sense my feelings and looked at me with a smile. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" He asked. I just nodded my head dumbly. He laughed lightly. "What was the name of the hotel owned by the Sladen's?" He asked.

"The Kristallpalast." My eyes were still roving taking in the scene in front of me.

"Well if my German serves me correctly I'd say I found the building we are looking for." I looked over at him in confusion. "The Kristallpalast, the crystal palace, I thought you'd have figured that one out." He guided my eyes with his finger to a gleaming building, that certainly looked as though it could be made of crystal, perhaps not large enough to be a palace, but certainly large enough to be a hotel. "So what now, do we stride in there and demand to speak to the owners?" He asked.

"Perhaps we ought to use a bit more tact than that. I'd say that our transfigured selves look the part of a well to do family that could afford a suite at this hotel. We declare that we intend to stay there for some time, and gently garner information on the owners, hopefully meeting them eventually. Then we can ask them what they know."

"Hermione that plan is ridiculous. Do you know how long it will take if we do things your way? I don't much care to be transfigured either. It is a blow to the ego looking like this." His voice took on a pompous sort of tone.

"Ugh Draco, only you would be thinking of your vanity in this situation. If we play our cards right, and play the charming couple I don't imagine this will actually take too long at all. Let's make a deal." Draco raised his eyebrow in question. "We try things my way, if they don't work out within two weeks I'll let you take control and do things your way."

"I really don't see why we had to rush to Banff if this is your plan. But sure, Hermione, we'll try it your way, and when it fails, we will do things how they ought to be done." I rolled my eyes. "And I'll have you know that my looks should always be top priority. It's hard work being the most handsome man on the planet."

"Yes dear, you are more brilliant than the sun, and that must be exhausting. Can we get a move on?" Draco grinned and nodded.

"How are we going to pay for this, by the way?" He asked. I flashed him a credit card that the ministry had given to me for the mission.

"It's being taken care of by the government."

"All right, free stay in a highly rated hotel! Perhaps your plan isn't so bad Granger." I smiled and took Draco's hand in mine and started walking towards the hotel. I transfigured my bag into two suitcases before we stepped into the lobby of the Kristallpalast. It was as gorgeous within, as it was without. Everything made from the finest materials and with a sparkling tinge from the crystalline walls. Draco had taken the credit card and slipped it into his pocket before we approached the desk.

"Good day sir and madam, how may I assist you?" The receptionist asked from behind the desk. I was surprised to hear that she was English, and not Canadian.

"Yes, my wife and I are looking for a room, the best room you've got." Draco pumped up the pomp in his voice, trying to sound grander than he was.

"Of course sir, how long are you intending to stay with us?"

"Two weeks at the very least."

"Well, luckily for you, our premium suite is available for the whole two weeks. Now it is our priciest room…"

"Money is no object." Draco scoffed. I tried to keep my face composed, as though I was actually married to a prat who talked to other people in such a manner.

"Well very good sir." The witch grinned. She took down our information, our aliases of Mr. and Mrs. Wallaberga, taking the credit card number down for payment. "I'll have your bags brought up to your room straight away. You're on the tenth floor, which is the top floor, I do hope you enjoy your stay, and of course never hesitate to ask us for anything." Draco just nodded arrogantly.

"Thank you very much." I smiled at the girl taking the keys that she proffered to me.

"You're very welcome Mrs. Wallaberga." Draco took my arm and slung it through his walking towards elevator.

"Hermione don't be so nice. Snotty well to do people are never nice."

"Well perhaps they ought to be."

"They'll never buy our story if you don't act the part." Draco looked down at me.

"I don't think that being extremely rude will get us anywhere. You play your part, and I'll be the woman who married into your horrid family to try and get your noses out of the air." I grinned up at him. He rolled his eyes.

"Fine…fine, I give up." We reached the tenth floor and stepped out into the hallway. The suite was positioned right across from the elevator and Draco quickly unlocked the door to let us in. It was another marvel. All of the furniture was white with platinum finishing, and it was bigger than the tent by far. "Whoa check this place out." Draco whistled.

"You're impressed by this hotel room? It must be quite grand." Draco rolled his eyes at me. There was a knock at the door and a bellhop was on the other side with our luggage. "Thank you." I smiled at the boy.

"Yes of course mam." I fished a tip out of my pocket and handed it to him. He thanked me and then back out of the room. Draco sighed when the door was closed.

"Can we get this glamor off of me now? My skin is starting to hurt from being so ghastly looking." I laughed and aimed my wand at Draco's face.

"There you big baby, now you're handsome as ever." Draco turned to study himself in a nearby mirror.

"Thank merlin; I was starting to think that I'd never see this beautiful visage again. I'm not really digging that look on you either Hermione." He grinned and pointed his wand at me; I could feel my features morph back to how they should be. "Mm yeah, that's much better." He smirked and walked towards me. He swooped down capturing my lips with his. I gave in for a moment loving the feel of Draco holding me, his lips moving over mine. I pushed away after a minute looked up at Draco; he gave me a lopsided grin. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me close again.

"Draco, we don't have time for this again right now. We need to plan, plus you've gotten quite enough action in the last twenty four hours."

"Oh, one can never get too much action Hermione." He threw a wink at me.

"Seriously Draco…I want to make sure that we are down in the restaurant for supper. That gives us five hours to plan how we are going to do this." Draco groaned and flopped onto one of the couches.

"Can't you just live a little? Improvise with me at dinner. We can cuddle up together and take a nap then get ready for the evening meal. You don't have to be such a hard ass all the time. Look where we are! This place is fantastic! Let's kick back and soak it up, if only for one night." I debated. I supposed that Draco had a point.

"Fine but just today, we are right back on task tomorrow, hear me?" Draco mock saluted me and stood from the couch.

"Why don't we check out the bedroom?" He grinned at me. He took my hand and led me into an opulent room with a canopied bed, hung with ice blue curtains and white ties. It looked like the softest bed on the planet. I walked toward it and hoisted myself onto it, it was quite high. I lay back and sighed happily. The sheets and blanket were clearly of a high quality and felt amazing under my touch. I felt the bed shift, and Draco wrap himself around me. "We should steal this bed and put it in the tent." He muttered.

"I agree, it's heavenly, I never want to be away from it." Draco laughed. Being that Draco and I had not gotten a whole lot of sleep the night before, and had heavily exerted ourselves that morning, we both fell asleep rather quickly.

* * *

I paced back and forth nervously in the kitchen. Kingsley was due to visit us that day, and I was anxious to know how he would react to me wanting to be in the fray again. Draco was sitting at the kitchen table watching me with a slight grin playing about his features. "Just what are you smiling about over there Mr. Malfoy?" I asked.

"You. You're so hilarious. I don't understand why you are so nervous. The worst thing that could happen is Kingsley will say no." I looked over at him and sighed. He was right of course. I walked over and he pulled me onto his lap.

"You're right I know. I don't know why I'm nervous really." Draco rubbed a hand over my back soothingly. There was knocking at the front door, and an opening and closing noise I could hear Kingsley calling out for us. "We're in the kitchen Kingsley!" I called. I gave Draco a quick hug before getting off of his lap to greet Kingsley.

"Good morning, how are you two today?" He asked with a smile.

"Were fine Kingsley, and you?" I answered.

"Well, thank you. I'm just checking in to see if you need anything, or wanted to chat about anything." He looked between the two of us expectantly.

"There is something I wanted to talk to you about Kingsley." He nodded that I should ahead. "Well I feel kind of useless just sitting around this safe house all day, and I think I speak for both Draco and I when I say we're getting restless. Are we really in so much danger that we need to stay in a safe house?"

"Unfortunately, yes. You know that you were followed, and now Orion knows that you've destroyed the crystal, I hear that he is more than a little unhappy about that. You two are at the top of his list of people to kill. You've been invaluable to the war effort, and I would greatly advise that you two just lay low for the time being." I sighed. "You don't need to sit around and do nothing though; you two are some of the best minds of your age. You can concoct potions to help us, or try to come up with useful spells. Or just work on your duelling skills, as I doubt anything could keep you two away from the final battle, if there is one." I nodded.

"Is there anything that the ministry needs? As far as potions and spells, that is." Kingsley paused in thought.

"I'm sure we can come up with something. I'll consult with some of our strategists and get a potion lab set up in here." I nodded.

"Thanks Kingsley."

"No problem Hermione. Anything else you two need to discuss with me?" He asked. I looked at Draco. He shrugged.

"I don't think so, you Hermione?' He asked looking at me.

"Nope, there is nothing else that I can think of, thank you for your time Kingsley." He nodded and waved before leaving the kitchen, and then the house altogether. I looked over at Draco, he raised his eyebrows.

"See love, didn't go over badly at all."

"I know." I collapsed into a chair at the table. "It isn't quite what I wanted, but at least we will be of some use." Draco nodded and placed a hand on top of mine. I smiled at him.

"I'm kind of relieved." He voiced, I cocked an eyebrow. "Well we are safe here, if we left we'd be in danger, I don't like to think of you in dangerous situations." My face softened.

"Aw, Draco, I don't like thinking of being in danger either. But we can't stay in this safe house forever can we?"

"I suppose not." He stood and walked over to me, bending low to lay a kiss on my forehead. He stood and gave me a wicked grin. "Are you up for a duel Granger?"

"Oh, bring it on Malfoy!"

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 **AN: Okay a nice quick update. And a long one as far my chapter lengths go! I;m kind of on a roll with this story. I know that a day isn't a lot to garner much of a response, but I didn't get any reviews for the last chapter. Which is kind of sad face for me! Reviews are really helpful guys! Anyway thanks to anyone who reads, follows, or favs, or reviews this story. Hope you enjoyed this chapter! :) ~WS  
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	14. Chapter 14

Draco and I had been at the Kristallpalast for three days, and I was quite happy with the progress we had made. I was impressed with how Draco charmed the other guests in the hotel. I was working the employee angle; they all liked me a lot. I had to admit that the two of us made quite a good team, and I was confident that by the end of the week we would be in contact with the hotel owners. We were sitting at our dinner table when the head chef approached us.

"Good evening Mr. and Mrs. Wallaberga." He smiled.

"Good evening chef." I smiled back.

"I trust your dinner tonight was to your liking?" He asked.

"It was absolutely delicious, as always." I flattered.

"Yes, it's too bad that you already have a job at such a renowned place. We're looking for a new chef, ours had to retire I'm afraid." Draco grinned, making direct eye contact with the portly chef in front of us.

"That's high praise indeed sir." He bowed slightly, a blush creeping up his neck from the compliment.

"A shame…" Draco re-iterated. "I am however planning quite a grand Christmas party this year. It's at our cabin in British Columbia, what are the odds that your bosses would lend us your services for that event?" He asked. He had come up with this idea last night, and his execution was perfect. The chef always visited high paying tables, and had visited our table the two previous nights as well. The chef looked bewildered.

"I'm not sure sir. I can ask them next time I see them."

"Oh, would you?" I asked in an over-excited tone. "Would you in fact pass on that we wish to speak to them personally?"

"Of course I will mam. They are scheduled to be here in two days. I'll certainly see if I can arrange a meeting."

"Perfect." I grinned.

"Thank you very much chef Dan." Draco flashed his teeth in a rare smile.

"No problem at all." The chef was grinning widely. He nodded his head at us before he moved off to another table. I looked at Draco and smiled. He smirked back and held up his hand for a high five, I quickly high fived him, unable to leave him hanging. I briefly looked about to see if anyone had seen the un-dignified gesture.

"We're so good!" Draco chuckled lightly in an undertone.

"We definitely outdid ourselves." I agreed, equally quietly. We quickly finished up our after dinner drinks and headed up to our room. As soon as the door was locked behind us Draco dropped our transfigured disguises.

"I really have to hand it to you Granger; your plan was a pretty good one."

"You never should have doubted me." I shot back with a smile. Draco walked towards me and slid an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. He gently put his other hand on my neck and leaned in to kiss me gently.

"What fun would our lives be if I just agreed with you all the time?" He asked when he pulled away. I laughed.

"You've got a point there Draco." I reached out and ran my hands up Draco's chest, grabbing onto his lapels. "We should really get some sleep. We'll need to figure out what we're going to say to the owners tomorrow. We're going to have to be careful with the amount of prying that we do." Draco rolled his eyes and glanced at his wrist.

"It's eight o'clock Hermione. And last I checked we're not toddlers with a bedtime, or elderly people who can't stay up past nine." The sarcasm in his voice was more than a little evident. I was about to protest when Draco silenced me with a searing kiss. I was always upset at how easily he could distract me. I was pretty much powerless to keep a thought in my head when he started kissing me. Draco's tongue ghosted over my lower lip, but instead of deepening the kiss, his lips made their way down my jaw and toward my neck. A moan started flooding the back of my throat. Draco hoisted me easily into his arms to better access my neck.

He casually moved us toward the bedroom. He lightly set me on the bed when got there and rand his hands up my back, pushing my chest into his, and reclaiming my mouth. "Why does Mrs. Wallaberga have to dress like such a fuddy-duddy?" He asked against my lips as his fingers sought out the zipper on my dress. I giggled, yes, giggled. Draco and I appeared to be a couple in their mid-forties, who were too grand for their own good when we were transfigured. That night I had been wearing a floor length beige dress, with darker brown floral splashes here and there, it was completed with a matching jacket to cover the sleeveless top of the dress.

"Well probably because Mr. Wallaberga is a well to do snot who buys his wife hideous clothes." I retorted. Draco snorted out a laugh and finally pulled away from me. His eyes raking my body, looking for the zipper I'm sure.

"You look so silly in that thing, honestly." Draco laughed. "It really doesn't suit you. I think that you would look more suitable in something like…" He trailed off and grabbed his wand, transforming the overly modest dress and jacket into a scandalously revealing little black dress. "…this!" I shook my head at him.

"I think that something more like this, suits me better." I flicked my wand towards my apparel and turned the little black number into my favourite pajamas. Draco was undeterred.

"Still better than that dress you were wearing." He grinned and pulled me towards him again. He didn't kiss me though, his hands ran up and down my arms, and his eyes gazed into mine. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can." I felt a little uneasy about the serious tone he had just taken.

"Do you think…?" His voice faltered and he shut his eyes. "Do you think we can make Mrs. Wallaberga a little hotter tomorrow night?" He asked, throwing a cheeky smirk my way.

"No. Mrs. Wallaberga will stay a refined woman, who is aging gracefully." I eyed him suspiciously, either he was a far better actor than even I knew, or that was not what he intended to ask me. "Is that really what you were going to ask me?" He hesitated.

"I can't ask you what I want to. You'll think I'm a huge idiot." I wasn't used to seeing Draco act vulnerable. I reached up to his hands, which were resting on my shoulders and brought them down to my lap, holding them lightly. I made sure he was looking at me before I responded.

"Ask me."

"I can't."

"You can. Ask me." He sighed. One of his hands detached from mine and ran over his face.

"I just want to know what's happening between us. I mean are you just shagging me because we got tossed together? Are you thinking that we should date when all this crap is over and done with?" I was a little baffled.

"What brought this on?"

"Just…I dunno we are acting as husband and wife right now, and me calling you my Mrs. It got me to thinking."

"Well Draco, I don't know how to answer your question. Deciding what a relationship is isn't a one person job. I'll admit that I'm very attracted to you, and I have been for a long time. Even when I hated you I still thought you were attractive. The more I've gotten to know you, the more attractive you've become to me. I don't know what will happen when this mission finishes. What are you thinking?" He lowered himself next to me on the bed, finally sitting so we were in a better position to converse.

"You thought I was attractive even back in school?" He asked.

"I don't want to inflate your ego." I joked, but I could tell that he was taking this chat very seriously. "But, yeah, you've always been good looking to me. Although you used to be really ugly every time you opened your mouth." The corner of his mouth briefly twitched up. "You were also a very beautiful ferret." I laughed. Draco finally cracked a smirk.

"Don't remind me." He grumbled. "I've kept my eye on you, you know?" I shook my head confused. "I've kept an eye on you ever since fourth year, when you showed up to the Yule Ball with Krum. Something changed about you at that dance. I mean clearly you got Madame Pomfrey to fix up your teeth, but it was something else…" He trailed off. "I'd always watched you academically, of course. The only class I ever managed to do better than you in was potions. But it became more than that, you exuded this vibe that I was intrigued by. But I was blinded by blood purity back then, as you well know." He stopped. I squeezed his hands lightly.

"Please, keep going." I urged. He looked down at our hands, entwined in my lap.

"I guess the best way to describe it, is I became infatuated with being near you, so I could feel the energy you gave off. I pretty much stalked you at some points, and in sixth year I realized that I was attracted to you. I so wish that I would have done things differently in sixth year. I knew that I never had a chance at getting close to you because of what I was." He rolled up the sleeve of shirt, baring his left fore-arm. A faded dark mark, that I had never taken the time to notice, was there. "My parents, no, my father, forced me to take the dark mark. Its hateful presence on my arm is a constant reminder of who I was. Because of this mark my life was not my own, so I avoided you at all costs, and thought only of my mission, so I could save my family. But when you and your two dunder-headed cohorts showed up at my mansion…I knew I had to stall, and act like I couldn't identify you. One look at you and your terrified face made me sick to my stomach." He stopped talking his head sinking into his hand. My mind went to the mark that I bore from that day.

"Draco, we escaped that day, and it's because you stalled on answering. If Voldemort showed up we would have been killed. What else could you have done?"

"I should have done something." He answered. "Yeah, you lot escaped, but not unharmed." He looked down at our hands again. And I knew he was thinking of the phrase carved into my arm by his aunt. He shook his head and looked back up into my eyes. "I tried to keep an eye out for you in battle. You guys saved my ass in the room of requirement…I was so stupid back then." He paused and cleared his throat. "So when I heard that there was a new uprising I made it my goal to make things right. And when I got told that I was going on a mission with you…well…I wasn't unhappy in the least. I could tell you were though."

"I've kept an eye on you too mister." I responded he narrowed his eyes in confusion. "After the war, when Harry testified to keep you out of Azkaban. I know how hard you've worked to help re-build after the war. I thought it was all for nothing when I heard that you fell in with Orion and his band of miscreants, I was disappointed. But, I obviously understand now why you did that. I forgave you a long time ago for your part in the war, and how it affected me, I know it wasn't your choice, and it's in the past now." Draco just looked at me hungrily before attacking my mouth with his. I gave into the kiss.

"Thank you." Draco mumbled into my lips. I drew back slightly.

"For what?" I asked.

"Forgiving me, I was never man enough to apologise to you for what I had done. I am sorry Hermione, more than you'll ever know." He drew me towards him and planted a kiss on my forehead before drawing me into his arms. I laid my head on his shoulder and let him hold me, feeling something shift significantly between the two of us. I felt way closer to Draco, and knew for certain that my relationship with him was deeper than I had thought it to be. Draco stood and divested himself of all his clothes except for his underwear, and then threw back the covers on the bed, picking me up in the process. He slid us into bed and I cuddled into him. "I guess it's your way tonight, early to bed." He laughed while wrapping his arms securely around me. I grinned and pressed a quick kiss to his chest.

"Goodnight Draco."

"Goodnight Hermione."

* * *

I was startled awake by a commotion on the lower lever of the safe house. I gently shook Draco awake and signalled for him to be quiet. He nodded and we grabbed our wands slowly making our way from the bedroom. Draco was, as usual in just his boxers, and I was in a really overlarge t-shirt that might as well have been a nightgown. Not exactly what you want to be wearing when facing a house intruder. I wasn't overly worried, Draco and I were more skilled at dueling than most people, but the rude awakening had my heart beating terribly fast.

Draco was walking in front of me down the stairs, keeping my free hand tightly gripped in his. We made it to the main floor and looked about for the cause of the racket that had woken me. I wordlessly cast a lumos charm and my wand tip lit up. There was nothing amiss in the entry way, so we turned in the direction of the kitchen, where a light was on. I glanced over at Draco and he nodded. We made our way towards the kitchen carefully. When we finally reached the entrance I was sweating from the excess adrenaline coursing through my system. I nearly screamed when I saw someone sitting at the kitchen table.

"Harry! You complete prat!" I yelled, when I identified Harry Potter sitting at the table. He looked at us with a bemused expression on his face.

"Sorry Mione, you know I love to make an entrance."

"What the hell?" I screeched. "Were you trying to give us heart attacks?"

"No, of course not, I am sorry. But it looks like I'll be joining the two of you here until the end of the war."

"Huh?" Draco grumbled out. He was probably hoping that he was having a bad dream.

"The ministry thinks it's wise if I lay low for a while. I just made a couple of really high profile arrests and Orion is calling for my blood. I knew that you were in a safe house, so I asked to be put up with you." He grinned and then he looked at Draco. "I forgot that Draco would be here." It was then that he noticed our clasped hands. "What's all that then?" He asked looking pointedly at said hands.

"It's none of your business Harry." Draco ground out.

"I agree with Draco on this one. It's no concern of yours." I dropped Draco's hand and walked towards Harry. He stood and swept me into a hug. "Aw, I've missed you Harry."

"I've missed you too Hermione. I didn't mean to wake you guys up, so let's chat more in the morning, okay?"

"Yeah, of course; there's another bedroom upstairs that you can have." I told him.

"There are three bedrooms? This place is bigger than it looks."

"No Harry, there are two bedrooms." I answered. Harry took a moment to figure out the implications of words. "Oh…you have a lot of explaining to do in the morning." He looked at both Draco and I with a stern look. I shrugged and pulled Draco out of the kitchen and up the stairs behind me. I flopped back into our bed with a groan. "Stupid Harry." I muttered. Draco crawled into the bed beside me and pulled me to him.

"This kind of sucks Hermione." He said. I nodded into his chest.

"Sorry love." He stroked his hands through my hair, quickly lulling me back to sleep without responding.

* * *

 **AN: Alllll right, longest chapter yet. This chapter took an unexpectedly serious turn. It makes sense to me, hopefully it does to you guys too. And Harry showing up the safe house, whaaaat? Anyway I know I go on about this in every authors note, but I haven't gotten any reviews on this story in a long time, and it makes me super sad face. I can tell by the view numbers that people are reading it. But I'd like to hear any feed back you guys have for me! So please, please, leave me a review! I'd like to thank my favs, follows, and past reviewers. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thanks for reading! ~WS**


	15. Chapter 15

Draco and I spent the next morning figuring out how exactly to do the digging we needed to with the owners. We obviously couldn't just come out and ask them blatant questions about Elizabeth or the crystal we sought. When I thought we had a good enough plan of attack tacked down Draco decided that we should have some fun. "Just what kind of fun do you have in mind Mister Malfoy?" I asked with a raised eyebrow as we sat back from the coffee table in the living room of our hotel room.

"Oh, use your imagination Hermione! We're in Banff, in Canada, a place you've never been before! We can do whatever we want. Go into muggle Banff and play the part of tourists, we could go skiing, we could make use of the huge bathtub featured in this very posh hotel room." He eyed me with a smirk on his face.

"Well why do I have to decide? What if I just say I trust you to find us something fun to do?" I asked.

"Ahh." He said, seemingly to himself, nodding. "I see. You're only good at planning out boring things, like studying and strategizing. Well at least you know your weaknesses." I glared at him.

"Well Draco, being good at things like studying and strategizing has made me highly successful in my career. I haven't had time to goof of and have fun."

"That's just an excuse that boring people use for why they are so boring." He answered. I rolled my eyes. "Fear not though my gorgeous Granger, consider this a lesson in fun!" He grinned pulling me to feet, and propelling me to our room. "Let's get ready for the day, wear something appropriate for walking around outside." I wanted to protest, but Draco did not give me time. We dressed in layers, planning to shed at least one when we got into muggle Banff, so we wouldn't look like the old uptight Wallaberga's. As soon as we were in Banff we skittered down an alley and divested ourselves of the outermost layer of clothing. I transfigured Draco to look much like he normally would, but with Black hair, and brown eyes. Draco did the same for me, but he gave me Blonde hair with pink highlights in it, and blue eyes. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Are you being serious Draco? Pink hair?" I asked.

"C'mon Hermione, it's fun!" He grinned. He flicked his wand at his own hair, which became slightly longer and streaked through with green. "Now we will look like a cool young couple out for a good time in the Rockies." I sighed, but smiled despite myself.

"Okay Draco, we'll do this your way, I'm taking note." He laughed and pulled us out of the alley way. We went down the main street, checking out all of the cool shops. There were quite a few candy shops selling all kinds of delicious confections. Shops that specialised in making fudge, shops that were famous for making soap, and jewellery stores that had breathtaking pieces. I spent way more money than was wise on candy, fudge, and caramel apples. I also spent an obscene amount of money on soap as well, but it all smelt so good. Draco bought me a rather extravagant pair of earrings, which were not really to my taste, but he assured me my Wallaberga counterpart would love them.

Shopping was curiously draining, but Draco insisted that we take the gondola up the mountain. I was glad he did because it was gorgeous, and when we came back down he decreed that we visit the hot springs. Another thing that I was glad he had suggested. They were amazing, by the time we left the hot springs I was feeling relaxed and contented. Draco recommended that we go out to dinner before heading back to our hotel and I easily agreed with him. He found us a spectacular Greek restaurant to eat at. All in all the day was hugely fun, and just what I needed to prepare for the next day. When we finally arrived back at the hotel looking like Mr. and Mrs. Wallaberga, we were warmly greeted by the receptionist. I waved and smiled making quick small talk with her before Draco and I made our way upstairs.

When we got in our room Draco dropped the transfigurations and smiled at me. "I hope you paid attention today." He smiled.

"I did. I'm confident that with a few more lessons from you, I'll be adept at planning a fun day." He laughed and drew me towards him.

"Of course, you are a quick study, after all." His lips were quickly upon mine, and I responded just as eagerly. I started peeling off the many layers of clothing that Draco was wearing as we made our way to the bedroom. Draco was pulling clothes off at a rapid pace as well. When the air finally hit my skin I sucked in a breath at how cold it was. Draco splayed his hands over my back, making me feel like his hands were huge, pulling me close to him. I sighed and pressed closer, feeling like I couldn't get close enough.

* * *

The next morning I woke up, forgetting that I now had Harry to deal with, and nuzzled into Draco's neck. I felt him stir, and place his arms more firmly around me. I felt his lips press into the top of my head briefly. I smiled to myself and considered dropping back off to sleep. "What're you going to tell Potter?" Draco's voice asked from above my head.

"Harry…right…I'd forgotten." I mumbled into his neck. "Well I figure he's already put most of it together. So I'll tell him the truth." I shrugged. Draco's hand moved slowly over my back in light circles.

"Would you have told him if he hadn't seen us holding hands last night?" He asked.

"Of course I would have. Why wouldn't I?" I looked up at his face, wondering why we asking me such weird questions.

"You've always been the most tolerant, and tolerable member of the golden trio. I don't think Harry is going to take too well to this."

"I think you underestimate him. But it doesn't matter how he feels about it." I answered. "It's not like I'm asking him to make out with you." I grinned. Draco's mouth twitched up in a smirk. "There we go a kind of smile."

"I would never make out with Potter, he so isn't my type."

"No? Is it the glasses?" I asked.

"I've never really thought about it, but it might be. He's had the same ones for ever; they are really not very flattering." I laughed and shook my head.

"I'll be sure to tell him that you don't think highly of his fashion sense." I mumbled settling back into his neck and closing my eyes. His arms tightened a bit around me and I sighed. I was just about to drop back off to sleep there was a knocking on the door to our room. I grumbled. "What is it?" I called.

"I've got breakfast ready if you guys want some!" Harry's voice drifted through the wood of the door. I heard Draco mutter something involving the word 'git' under his breath.

"Thanks Harry we'll be up in a minute." I called. I rolled onto my stomach and looked up at Draco. "I'm sorry Draco; I'll talk to him about not being intrusive."

"You don't need to apologize to me, you didn't ask for this." Draco pulled me up slightly and kissed me lightly. It turned into a not so light kiss, and I had to force my side-tracked mind away from Draco's lips. He looked unhappy, so I pressed a quick kiss onto his lips before pushing myself out of bed. "I'll make this up to you later. You don't have to come down to breakfast, but you can if you want to." I pulled a pair of pajama pants on under my huge t-shirt and quickly made my way down to the kitchen. Harry was sitting there with a cup of coffee and a plate of breakfast set out for me.

"Good morning Harry." I greeted.

"Good morning Hermione, how did you sleep?"

"Quite well, thank you. How did you sleep?" I asked.

"I don't think I would sleep very well with a death eater in my bed." Harry said. "But I slept alright, considering there was one in bed with one of my best friends across the hall." I rolled my eyes.

"Let me ask you why you came here then? You knew that Draco would be here, regardless of his relationship with me."

"I think the more important question is how you can stand the slimy git touching you?" I glared at Harry; he could be such an ass sometimes.

"Because he isn't a slimy git, are you telling me you haven't changed at all since the end of the last war? You're the exact same person you used to be?"

"Fundamentally, yes I am the same, I say once an elitist bastard, always an elitist bastard." He crossed his arms as if that were that.

"You don't know him at all. You never did. He used to be a shit back in school, but you don't know what was going through his head back then. I've never known you to be so small minded Harry." I took a deep breath trying to steady myself. "If you woke me up and brought me down here to try and turn me against Draco, I think I'll just go back upstairs." I rose from the table, but Harry caught my hand.

"Ugh Hermione, I mean, you're right. It was just shocking to me when I showed up here last night. And then I was thinking about it all night, and I just got angry. I felt sure you were under a spell, or he was threating you. I guess I just wasn't thinking properly. Can you just explain to me how this happened?" He asked. The look in his eye was so genuine that I found myself sinking back into the chair I had just vacated.

"You aren't owed an explanation Harry, especially after what you just said. However, because we are friends, I will overlook your overprotective streak, and give you an overview of how this happened." I sighed trying to think of how to begin. "Well as you know I was assigned a case, I told you about it before I left. Draco was my partner for it. We were working in very close proximity, living out of a tent, just like when we were searching for horcruxes. We naturally got closer with only each other for company. We had to make a trip to Canada, and that's when things changed…we got…even closer." Harry grimaced, understanding my implication. "He is so much different than you think he is."

"I guess I'll have to take your word for it." Harry replied after a long silence. "I don't think I'll ever see it."

"Well maybe if you gave him a chance instead of just writing him off. If you won't even try I suggest that you ask Kingsley for somewhere else to stay. You and I we have been friends for a long, long time, but I don't even recognise you right now." This time I did leave the kitchen, fighting to keep my tears under control until I could get to a bathroom. I just about made it to the one upstairs when Draco emerged from our room. He took one look at me, and his face darkened. He looked like he was about to thunder down the stairs, but I pushed him back into our room.

"What the hell did he say to you?" He asked when I had shut the door behind me.

"He was just being an asshole. I'm just angry."

"Let me guess, he thinks that I'm death eater scum and you two should get as far away from me as possible?" He asked dejectedly. He looked away from me as he said it; I reached a hand out and placed it on his arm. He looked back at me sadly.

"Yeah, that is what he thinks. But it isn't what I think, and trust me I told him so. Harry can be a git sometimes; I'm hoping that he stops soon." I drew Draco towards me and put my arms around him. He was stiff and unresponsive for a bit, but eventually his arms came around me too. I looked up and him and gently pulled his face towards mine. I fused my lips with his and was happy when he readily responded. When Draco detached his lips from mine and started kissing his way to the sweet spot behind my ear I became putty in his very capable hands.

"I can think of something we can do that would absolutely piss off that prat Potter." He purred into my ear. I chuckled low in my throat.

"Draco, you're horrible. I love it." Draco grinned against my neck and picked me up swiftly, carrying me to the bed.

* * *

 **AN: Alright this chapter kind of took on a life of it's own I wasn't sure how Harry would act right up until I wrote it. Once again, and this will be the last time I whine or harp about this...I got no reviews for the last chapter. That's a lot in a row with no feedback. Which makes me feel unhappy, and uncertain, because I have no clue how this story being received by you guys. Anyway rant done. Thank you for reading, reviewing, following, or favving this story! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! ~WS  
**


	16. Chapter 16

"Well Mr. and Mrs. Wallaberga, I must say it is an honor to meet you." Jude Sladen complimented with a smile. "Having patrons such as yourselves is flattering to say the least."

"Oh, does our reputation precede us?" Draco asked.

"Yes of course, you are highly exalted by the staff, and who hasn't heard of the Wallaberga's?" His wife Dana piped up. I struggled to keep a snort down, as we had made the Wallaberga's up.

"Oh how kind of you to say." I replied smiling instead of laughing.

"Our head chef Dan informed us that you would like to speak to us, so of course we were more than happy to arrange a meeting." Jude got us back on track with a grin.

"Right Dan, a very talented chef to be sure. Well we were wondering if you would lend us his services this Christmas. We are hosting a rather important holiday party at our cabin in B.C. And our chef has recently left our employ. We would of course compensate you handsomely for the inconvenience of losing your head chef over the holidays." Draco was always so suave in these situations.

"Well of course we would have to discuss that with Dan and work something out to cover him, but I see no reason why that wouldn't work." Jude grinned.

"Wonderful!" I smiled. "You know we just love it here at the Kristallpalast. It's such a beautiful place, so well-staffed, with such a fascinating history to it." I leaned forward slightly.

"It does have an interesting history, doesn't it?" Jude smiled. "It's been in my family for generations."

"Yes, my great-grandfather was well acquainted with Stanley and Claudette Sladen. He always kept a journal and I'm quite avid about family history.

"Perhaps he stayed here back at the founding of the Kristallpalast then?" Jude seemed very interested.

"Oh, I'm not sure that he ever made it over to Canada, he quite fancied their daughter Elizabeth, and she was over in Europe at the opening of this hotel. I believe she stayed with him a couple of times while she was over there. This hotel was not always called the Kristallpalast though, was it?" Draco asked.

"No, at the grand opening it was called simply, The Ice Chalet. It stayed as such until Elizabeth moved here, and then it was re-named, and slightly remodelled."

"I never realized…what part of the hotel was remodeled?" I inquired.

"The premium suite, actually, that's where Elizabeth lived. She lived there from the time that she moved to Canada, until she died." I fought to keep my face neutral.

"Oh how interesting, I had no idea we were staying in such a historical room!" I gushed in a very Mrs. Wallaberga fashion.

"It's said that she hid her most valuable possession somewhere in that room. Of course it's been searched top to bottom multiple times. But nothing has ever been turned up." Dana added in gossipy hush. I slid my eyes toward Draco quickly, I could tell by his eyes that he was a getting excited, but the rest of his face was composed mask.

"Wow, that's an incredible story. Do you think we could finish our conversation over dinner? I've got something special planned for my wife that we are rapidly becoming late for." Draco smiled and shot me a wink. My lips twitched up of their own accord. "And please consider our offer about Chef Dan in the meantime." We all stood and Jude shook Draco's hand.

"I will work something out for you of Mr. Wallaberga. This all seems a little formal; may we call you by your first names?" He asked. I smiled widely.

"Of course dear, call me Brigid please. And you can call him Nathan." I said patting Draco's arm. He nodded and we all bid each other goodbye making plans, as Draco had suggested to meet up for dinner. We made our way up to our room, and when we entered I turned to Draco smiling. "That went really well!"

"No kidding Hermione! I can't believe our luck. I'm not sure how we will find this prized possession though if the room has been gone through so many times with no results."

"Think about it though. I'm sure it was searched after Elizabeth died, and probably a bunch of times after, but it all would have been the years closely following her death. I'm sure many people haven't heard the story of her hiding things here, and I'd wager this room hasn't been searched in decades. We've made many magical advancements since then I'm sure. And I don't want to sound arrogant, but we have some of the best minds in the magical community. If anyone can figure this out, it's us." He looked over at me and smiled.

"I suppose you've got a point there Hermione. I say that we start a thorough investigation on this room tomorrow. For now…" He trailed off. He took his wand out from his jacket pocket and transfigured us to look as we normally would. "For now, I think congratulations are in order for us." He smirked and walked slowly towards me.

"I am rather proud of us. I never would have believed that we would make a good team Draco."

"We're better than a good team, we're the best team." He laughed. I rolled my eyes.

"I don't know, maybe not the best, but pretty excellent."

"Why can't you just agree with me, woman?" He asked in mock irritation.

"What fun would our lives be if I just agreed with you all the time?" I asked echoing his words from earlier in the week.

"Hmm a wise point indeed." He grinned and leant down capturing my mouth with his. He hoisted me into his arms and walked us over to one of the couches in the living room, where he sat with me on his lap. I quickly found myself divest of my shirt, with Draco cupping my breasts over my bra. His thumbs were moving in tantalizing circles, and I pushed myself closer towards him to encourage him. "Not very patient today, huh?" He laughed.

"I'm never patient, and you are always a tease." I replied with a pout aimed at Draco. He laughed and re-captured my lips. I ran my hands slowly down his torso; I undid his belt buckle and untucked his shirt from his pants. I nimbly popped all the buttons open and pushed the shirt off of his shoulders. Draco made a groaning noise against my lips and his hips moved toward mine unconsciously. I soon found myself pinned under Draco on the couch, ours eyes locked and some weird emotion overcame me. Draco stilled and just stared back at me. My heartbeat sped up and I looked at Draco curiously. He blinked a couple of times and then shook his head before smiling at me. "What-" But Draco cut me off pressing his lips firmly to mine again. I decided to just forget the odd moment, and soon I couldn't really think of anything but Draco, and how he was making me feel.

* * *

I spent a very awkward couple of days in the safe house with Draco and Harry. Draco for the most part stayed in our room, or in the potions lab that had been set up for us. Harry skulked about in the kitchen and living room, hoping to catch my attention. I was still miffed at him for the argument we had the morning after he arrived. I resolved on the third morning upon waking, that the awkwardness would end that day, one way or another. There was no way I was going to live with such stress on a daily basis.

I woke up before Draco and rested my hand on his chest, and my chin upon my hands, watching him intently. He slept for an additional ten minutes before I knew he was awake. His arms shifted slightly around me and he ran a hand up my back before fluttering his eyes open. "Good morning Hermione." He mumbled sleepily.

"Good morning Draco." He grinned and closed his eyes again. I continued looking at him.

"Do you have some kind of weird addiction to watching me sleep?" He asked a couple of minutes later, opening his eyes again.

"What if I do?" I asked.

"I'm breaking up with you and never sleeping in the same room as you again." He answered.

"Wow, that's pretty extreme." He laughed and wrapped his arms more fully around me.

"You know me." He shifted us into a sitting position. "What is it Hermione?" He asked.

"Why do you assume I want something?" I asked.

"Well you do, don't you?" He asked with a smirk. I paused.

"Well, yes." I picked myself up off of Draco's chest and looked at him seriously. "I want this air of tension out of this house by the end of the day." I announced. "I know it's mostly Harry's fault, but we all have to work together to fix this. So I'm going to make breakfast, and both you and Harry are going to come into the kitchen to eat it. I hope it doesn't result in a fight."

"You know that it probably will, right?"

"Yeah I know. But maybe if we just hash everything out? I can't handle the way things are right now. I answered with a shrug. Draco pulled me towards him and tucked my head under his chin.

"Hermione, I'll come and eat breakfast with you and Potter, and I'll try my hardest not to hex the git. I don't want you to be unhappy."

"Thank you Draco." I pressed a kiss to his neck. "I love you." He gripped me tighter and kissed the top of my head.

"Well I obviously love you too, otherwise I never would have put up with Potter being here." I grinned and reached up to cup his cheek.

"I know. You're such a sweetie."

"Don't tell anyone." I laughed and leaned up to give him a quick kiss.

"It'll be our little secret. I'll take it to the grave." I vowed seriously. He grinned.

"Thanks love." He kissed me, briefly distracting me from my morning mission. When I pulled back a couple of minutes later he pouted a bit.

"Come on now Draco I have to get up and cook breakfast and broker some peace for this house."

"Why do you have to be so noble all the time? Can't we just make sex noises until Potter gets too awkwarded out and leaves of his own accord?"

"Draco, I think we both know that would be hilarious. But can we try things my way first?" He sighed.

"Okay Hermione. But if your way doesn't work I insist that we try my way."

"Deal." I rolled out of bed and made my way downstairs. I quickly made French toast and bacon, along with some freshly squeezed orange juice. When I finished preparing breakfast and had set it on the table with a warming spell over it I made my way back upstairs and popped my head into my room quickly. "Alright mister, it's time for breakfast." Draco pulled a face but got to his feet and pressed a kiss to my lips before heading down the stairs to wait in the kitchen. I turned to Harry's room and knocked on the door. I heard a noise from within that sounded like come in, so I did. "Good morning Harry." I said slowly entering the room.

"Hey Hermione, what's up?" He was sitting on the edge of his bed looking at a wizard photo.

"I made some breakfast and I was wondering if you were hungry?"

"I am." When he made no attempt to move, I went closer to him.

"What are you looking at Harry?" I sat next to him and saw for myself. He was looking at a picture from way back in our days at Hogwarts. It was during one of the parties in the common room. He was standing next to Ginny, laughing at something she had said. She reached out and put a hand on his face looking at him adoringly. "Ginny…You must miss her." They had gotten back together briefly after the end of the last war…but things were never quite the same between them. They broke up and Ginny had focused on her career, eventually moving to Bulgaria to play quidditch professionally there.

"I do. I'm looking at this photo to try and remember what it's like to be in love." He answered. I put my hand on his back.

"You don't remember what it's like?" I asked.

"It all seems so long ago, like something I'm so far removed from…But I've been watching how you and Malfoy are around each other…I'm sorry for the way I acted Hermione." I leaned in and hugged him.

"It's okay Harry. I'm sure if I came to see you and saw you shacked up with someone like Pansy Parkinson I'd freak out a bit."

"Yeah, but you would listen to me when I tried to explain."

"You're right. But that doesn't matter now. Can you just come to breakfast? I'm hungry, and Draco is already down there. Maybe we can talk things out, and then we can all live in this house peacefully." Harry nodded and got to his feet. He gave me a quick hug.

"Thanks Hermione." We made our way downstairs and to the kitchen, where Draco was sitting. I took a seat next to him, and Harry sat across from us. "Malfoy." Harry greeted coolly.

"Potter." Draco countered. I looked between the two nervously.

"Sorry for disrupting things here at the safe house." Harry eventually said. Draco inclined his head.

"That's alright. Maybe you can help us with the work we are trying to do here."

"I'd like to try and help, if you'll let me." Harry answered. I smiled, happy that Harry and Draco were at least trying to be civil for my sake. Maybe things would be fine.

* * *

 **AN: Alrighty another chapter up. Will Hermione and Draco find the crystal in their hotel room? Will there be peace in the safe house? As soon as I know the answers I'll let you know! Haha. Thank you to all my readers, followers, favs, and reviewers. Please let me know what y'all thought of this chaper! Thanks! ~WS**


	17. Chapter 17

Draco and I awoke early the next day to search the room. It was hours of work, but eventually I found a concealed door at the back of a closet. I called Draco over to me excitedly. "Draco!"

"What is it?" He asked popping his head into the closet.

"I've found a hidden door in the closet."

"Top notch Granger!" He smiled. I laughed and elbowed him lightly. I cast a couple of spells to see if there were any enchantments on the door, anything dark that might hurt us. But it seemed that apart from the concealment charm that had been on it, it was not enchanted in any way. Draco slowly reached for the handle and turned it, pushing the door inward just as slowly. It was a room that contained only a staircase. I tilted my head up to see where it led, but I couldn't tell. I looked at Draco and he shrugged. "There is only one way to find out where this goes." I nodded my head in agreement.

"Let's go then." I started ascending the crystalline spiral staircase. It seemed to go on forever. I paused on the way up catching my breath. "Is this staircase ever going to end?" I asked. Draco laughed lightly at me.

"Finding the staircase a bit of a challenge?" He asked. He seemed totally fine. I glared at him. "At any rate it has to end soon, so just keep going Hermione." I sighed, but knew that he was right. I continued climbing for a couple more minutes before finding the top. The sight was nearly breathtaking. The staircase opened up into a glass panelled room that seemed to be set well above the roof of the hotel. There had to be a concealment charm on it. We could see clear to the mountains, it was gorgeous. I turned my attention inwards. There were only two pieces of furniture in the room, a day bed and a writing desk. "This is incredible." I heard Draco gasp from behind me.

"We should search this desk." I responded, a little off topic. Draco nodded. We rifled through the desk going through every drawer and compartment we could find. We came up empty handed. Draco continued searching the desk, but I flopped back onto the day bed. I drew in a sharp breath when I landed on something hard. Draco looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

"I'm fine…there is something hard hidden under the blanket on this day bed though." I stuck my hand under the cover to find what had jabbed me. I pulled out something that was square and wrapped in parchment. "Hmm, this is kind of bizarre." Draco came and sat next to me. He cast a few charms over the object before confirming it was safe. I unwrapped the object, which looked mildly like a compass, and saw writing on the inside of the paper.

 _Hello there, I assume that whoever is reading this knows who I am, and the magical object I am known to possess. Doubtlessly it's been found, and could be in the hands of pretty much anyone. This magical compass is linked to that item, and will guide you to it. This compass only appears to those with pure intent. I understand the power of the item I once called mine. Safety and luck be with you. ES._

I looked at Draco; his eyebrows were drawn together in concentration. "So this staircase room isn't something we found by chance." I said with a shrug.

"I'm not sure if the whole room or just the object was concealed. Either way, we have a new heading."

"How soon do you think we can set off without seeming suspicious?" I asked.

"Doesn't really matter, Brigid and Nathan Wallaburga are fictitious characters, we can disappear and no one would find them." I nodded. I looked about at the beautiful scenery around us and sighed. Draco slung an arm around me and drew me into his side.

"I'm going to miss this place." I voiced, I could feel Draco nodding, and his arm tightening around me.

"We'll come back someday." He said. I felt him place a kiss on the top of my head. I sat tucked under his arm for a couple more minutes before sighing and standing.

"I guess we should get going then." Draco nodded and pushed up to his feet. We made our way back down the staircase and began packing up our things. "Last appearance of the Wallaburga's, I think you'll be sad when you don't have to transfigure anymore." I threw a grin at Draco.

"I promise I won't be sad. Having to turn this beautiful face of mine into something hideous was a sin. You were also really hard to flirt with when you looked like Brigid." He answered, seemingly serious.

"Ah, then perhaps I should adopt that persona full time." I answered. Draco's eyes widened and he shook his head vigorously. I laughed at his response and he quickly made his way toward me. His hands were on either side of my head, and his eyes were staring intently into mine.

"You wouldn't torture me like that, would you?" He pretty much whined. I could see the edges of his mouth turning up, trying not to laugh.

"Of course I would." He actually did smile then, his mouth capturing mine briefly.

"Mean." He declared.

"Oh, you know it." I answered. I raised myself onto my toes and kissed Draco quickly. "Now, enough foolishness, we need to pack and go." In short order we had everything we needed packed and ready to go. We transformed into the Wallaburga's for the last time and made our way to the lobby.

The receptionist looked a little surprised to see us in the lobby with our luggage. "Good afternoon Charlene." I greeted the receptionist on duty with a Brigid patented smile.

"Something I can help you with?" She asked.

"Yes, actually." Draco cut in. "We've received some…unfortunate news from home, and must leave immediately."

"Oh, I'm very sorry sir."

"Everything will be fine in the end." Draco reassured her. "We do however, need to take our leave. Just charge everything to the credit card on file." Charlene nodded and magically drew up a bill to have us sign. Draco signed the paper and I thanked Charlene.

"Hope everything turns out okay Mr. and Mrs. Wallaburga. And please, do come and visit us again." She chirped and gave us a smile. I made a pleasant good bye and we vacated the hotel. We trotted off to an apparition point and popped out of sight.

* * *

Things had finally settled back into normalcy in the safe house, and though Draco and Harry would probably never be friends, they did work remarkably well together. We were working on potions and spells for the ministry and making quite a lot of headway.

One night Draco pulled me into our room just after dinner. I looked up at him suspiciously. "What's going on Dray?" I asked. He looked oddly nervous and paced a bit before turning to look at me seriously.

"Take a seat." He pointed me towards the bed, and I sank slowly into it. He sat next to me, and took my hands into his. "I feel like things are moving forward quickly in the outside world. We can't be holed up in here forever." I felt a sense of dread settle over me.

"Yes, things seem to be getting tenser." I replied.

"With that in mind, I think there is something we should be clear about." I felt my heart drift even lower.

"You're starting to scare me a bit, Draco, what's this about?"

"Well, it's about you and me. But, don't be scared. You mean the world to me; I would never have made it this far in the war without you." I felt some of my nerves ease a bit. "I can't imagine my life without you, Hermione. You're my best friend, I trust you with my life, and I don't ever want to be without you. All that being said, would you, Hermione Jean Granger do me the honor of becoming my wife?" I felt as though I couldn't breathe as Draco slid off the bed and knelt in front of me. He reached into the pocket of his sweater and pulled out a black velvet box. He cracked it open and inside was a glittering ruby ring, set in with four brilliant diamonds and set on a gold band.

"Merlin Draco, where did you get that?" He smirked.

"I have my ways Witch. But more importantly, I'm waiting for an answer."

"Ha-ha, of course I'll marry you!" Draco smiled and slid the ring on my finger quickly before standing and pulling me into his arms. "I love you Draco." I smiled into his neck.

"I love you too." He brought his mouth towards mine and swept me up in a searing kiss. He set me down and I looked towards my now ringed finger, and marvelled at the ring.

"Seriously Draco, where did you get this from?" I asked.

"I asked Kingsley to help me out. He retrieved this from my manor and brought it here for me. I wanted to surprise you, which is no easy feat." I smiled at him.

"Well you accomplished your goal. I'm floored." I leant up and kissed him again. "You know all that stuff you said?" I asked referring to his proposal. Draco nodded his head. "I feel the same way about you. I love you so much. You've become, somehow, everything to me. I never want to be apart from you either." Draco slid his arms around me and kissed the top of my head.

"I'll never let you go." He promised.

* * *

 **AN: Hello. Ages. It's been ages since I updated. I'm sorry. I really have no excuse. I've not been super motivated lately, but that shouldn't stop me from finishing stories for you guys! So hopefully you all enjoyed this chapter! Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think! I love all my followers, favvers and commenters! And of course I love all my readers! 3 Thanks for reading WS  
**


	18. Chapter 18

**AN: So just a reminder this fic is rated M for a very good reason.**

* * *

It took some doing to get back to England, but eventually Draco and I made it. That's where the compass had led us at any rate. Draco stretched his arms out and smiled widely when we touched down on English soil. "Home at last." He shot a grin at me. I smiled back quickly before shooting up wards to protect our campsite. Draco set up the tent and disappeared inside of it. Once I finished all of my spell work I went into the tent as well and flopped onto a couch.

"Well Draco, where do we go from here?" I asked.

"I think we just continue to follow the compass…" Draco looked at me like I was ridiculous. I rolled my eyes.

"That's obvious, but I mean, I think this glowing on the compass is indicating that we're much closer to the crystal. So we can't just keep apparating about mindlessly." I sighed. "But we can't exactly wander around the country without risk of getting caught."

"We need to think logically about where it could be." He said running a hand over his face. "I think we need to consider that Orion and his guys might already be in possession of the crystal."

"Can't have, they would be using it already, so we would know." I answered.

"That is, unless they can't figure out how to." He responded. "Or they are managing to be discreet."

"I suppose. We should also check all old wizarding estates. That's where something like that is most likely to be, yeah?" Draco nodded. "So let's plot out old estates and known locations of Orion and his supporters, and work through them going from West to East and North to South. Hopefully we won't have to go through all of the estates before we pick up on something. Because I imagine there are a ton of locations throughout Great Britain that we'll have to check." Draco groaned.

"This sounds like it's going to be torturous."

"I'm afraid so." I answered. I got up and went over to the chair he was sitting on, I sat and cuddled into his side. His arms immediately came around me, and his hands rubbed circles on my back. "I'll owl the ministry for the estates and get an extra map so you can point out all the Orion related locations on that."

"Does your brain ever slow down?" He asked me lazily.

"Not often." I replied.

"Well I know one thing that generally muddles your head." He grinned at me as I looked at him in question. One of his hands slid up and tilted my chin up, creating a better angle for him to lean down and capture my lips with his. My heart always stuttered a bit when Draco kissed me. I soon forgot all thoughts of the ministry and locations, as Draco pulled me closer to him. He had pulled me so I was straddling his legs, and his hands hand found their way under my shirt, one on my back pushing me closer to him, and the other one splayed on my ribs, just brushing my bra. His mouth detached from mine and he slowly started kissing down my neck while I breathed in air. "See now beautiful, not so hard to distract you." He chuckled huskily into my neck.

"You're too good with your mouth." I answered back breathily.

"Is that all I'm good with?" He asked, his eyes flashing up to mine dangerously. I whimpered involuntarily as he ran his hands up my thighs. One hand rested in between my thighs, while his other drifted up my shirt to rest on one of my breasts. "Not good with my hands, or anything else?" He asked devilishly.

"You have rather talented hands as well." I conceded.

"Any other appendage you feel the need to praise?" His voice grew deeper and raspier as he rolled his hips against mine, and I could feel his desire for me. I moaned lightly, my head going fuzzy with need.

"Well of course that's fantastic too." I finally managed while Draco ran his tongue along my collarbone. "Please Draco." I sighed out.

"Please?" He asked, a smirk making his face almost irresistible.

"Get a move on with this. You always drive me so crazy."

"Patience is a virtue Hermione." He quipped. All the same he stood, hooking my legs around his hips and carting me off to one of the bedrooms.

* * *

The next morning I woke up and smiled. Draco always looked so much younger and more peaceful when he was asleep. I always watched him for a couple of minutes when I woke up, finding his sleeping form interesting. His breathing picked up and I could tell he was awake. "What are you staring at Granger?" He asked without opening his eyes.

"I'm staring at you, obviously." I answered with a small smile as his eyes fluttered open.

"Hmm, like what you see then?" He asked his trademark smirk gracing his face.

"Well you certainly are easy on the eyes."

"You're not bad yourself gorgeous." He answered back. He drew my face closer to his and kissed me deep, and slow. I gave in for a moment before sighing and pushing back. Draco frowned. "Let me guess, we have lots of work to do today." He grumbled.

"Wow, you're so clever." I smiled. "We do have a lot of work to do today. I need to get that owl sent off, and we need to relocate, hope fully by the end of the day we'll have a response from the ministry and then we can start plotting our search path." A groan came from Draco and an adorable pout took over his mouth. "Okay tell you what. I'll send the owl off, say a proper good morning to you, then we can have breakfast and re-locate. That way we won't just be waiting on the response." He looked a little less dejected.

"Okay Hermione." I rolled out of bed and grabbed a robe that had carelessly been tossed on the floor the night before and made my way into the sitting room. I grabbed some parchment and a pen and scribbled out a quick note to the ministry before sending it off. I went back into the bedroom took a moment to appreciate Draco's form. He was pale and muscular and honestly gorgeous. His light blonde hair shone in the morning sun that was pouring in one of the windows. I walked towards the bed, and the next thing I knew Draco had grabbed me and flipped me under him on the bed. He was giving me one hell of a kiss, I barely had time to start kissing him back when he broke off and started kissing down my neck.

"Where's the fire?" I breathed out, Draco just quirked an eyebrow at me.

"I'll give you fire." He smirked and reattached his mouth to my neck. He slowly kissed his way onto one of my shoulders and then down onto my chest. His mouth encircled one of my nipples while his fingers played with the other one. My back arched off of the bed and I squirmed in anticipation. He moved his mouth to my other breast before kissing down my ribcage and onto my stomach. His eyes glittered up at me as he descended further. My mind became an absolute blank as he used his hands and mouth on me to bring me to a climax.

Later than I had anticipated Draco and I had finally relocated our camp and the ministry owl had found us. I devoted the rest of my night to creating a route for Draco and I to follow on our hunt for the crystal. I could feel that we were closing in on it, and I was starting to get excited.

* * *

Harry tried to act happy when he discovered that Draco and I were engaged. I appreciated the effort if nothing else. We were all amicably working away; we were close to creating a stronger shielding spell, when Kingsley appeared in the safe house. We all looked at him, shock etching our features. He absolutely never dropped by unannounced. "Kingsley?" I asked. He looked at me; I could tell by his face he was feeling tense about something.

"We've received word from an informant of ours. Now that the crystal is destroyed and Orion has had no luck in coming up with another method of making himself stronger, he intends to storm the ministry and stage a take-over. He's gathering up his troops, and from what we can gather there will be a full-fledged attack in two days time. Can we count on you three to be there?" He asked. We all nodded.

"If I'm honest I would be happy to have you three stay here, but I know that won't happen."

"You're right about that." Harry cut in, a fierce look in his eye.

"That's why I'm here Harry. So you have the choice. I'll send a ministry official for you in the morning in two days. Good luck." He was about to leave again when he spun back around and looked at me. His eyes flicked down to my left hand, where I was still getting used to the magnificent ring Draco had given me. "Oh, and by the way, congratulations Mr. Malfoy and Ms. Granger." We thanked him and that time he actually did leave. Silence descended on the three of us.

"Well I guess this is it then." Harry spoke at last. "We've done this before, we can do it again."

"Come on then, let's get back to this spell, we have to be as prepared as possible." I instructed the boys nodded their heads in unison and we got back to work.

* * *

That night in our room Draco was holding me with a pensive look on his face. "I'm a little worried Hermione. We're going to be high on the hit list. Orion has to know by now that we were the ones that got the crystal and fucked him over." I rubbed my hand over his chest and looked up at him sadly.

"I know Draco. But we're going to fight our hardest, and best and we're going to get through this."

"I wish I had your faith." He muttered. I leaned up and kissed him gently.

"We're going to fight together, and stay together. We're two of the best fighters the ministry has. I'd like to see Orion and his men trying to take us down." I grinned and kissed him lightly again. He finally relaxed a bit and kissed me back.

"Of course you're right Hermione." He ran his fingers lightly over my face, and looked at me with his beautiful eyes shining oddly. "I love you." He whispered.

"I love you too." I whispered back. He kissed me one last time and I settled my head onto his chest, exhausted from our day of heavy preparation.

* * *

 **AN: I know it's been ages. I've been having one heck of a hard time with life lately. But I'm back with a rather steamy, for me, update. I know there is quite a lot of citrus in this chapter, and fluff, but that's to make up for the upcoming chapters, which I promise will not be fluffy. This fic is wrapping up in my head and I think there will only be a couple more chapters left on it. Anyway thanks to everyone who has taken the time to favourite, follow, or review this story. Especially my reviewers. I love them I thrive off of them! So lemme know what you thought of this update! As always thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! ~WS  
**


	19. Chapter 19

Draco and I had been tirelessly pinging around the country, having carefully mapped out a course. I had a feeling we would know when we found the right place, I was sure the compass would go berserk. We found ourselves outside a manor in the North of England, where a well-known supporter of Orion lived. His name was Titus Overstrand, and his family was one of the richest in the area. The compass started vibrating and it was almost like I could feel it straining as we touched down. I looked over at Draco. "It looks like we've found the crystal." I tried to smile, but quickly realized that the phase of the plan where I had to go retrieve the crystal was upon us.

"Yeah, looks like it, didn't take too long either. Hermione, we've talked about this, I can go in and get it, and you can set up the camp and keep watch for me."

"No, that was too risky, we agreed. If something goes wrong with the spell work, and someone sees, they're less likely to kill me than you."

"It's high risk either way." Draco stated, not for the first time.

"It's riskier for you." I argued back. "They think you're a traitor and will not hesitate to kill you. And if they decide to torture you it would be absolute brutal. If they catch me they'll keep me as a bargaining chip with the ministry. They might torture me, but it would be nothing compared to what they'd do to you. We've discussed this before, and you know why it has to be me. Believe me, if I didn't have to go in there I wouldn't." Draco sighed and looked at the ground.

"I'm giving you four hours, and if you haven't gotten back to camp by then, I'm coming after you. If anything happens to you…" His voice trailed off and an intense look came over his face.

"Trust me; nothing is going to happen to me. I've been preparing for this for ages. I know all of the spells to get me past the barrier, to make me and the compass invisible and to mask my sounds, please try not to worry."

"There's a fat chance of that Hermione." He reached out to me and slid his arms around me. I hugged him back briefly. His hand came up to my chin and tilted my head up gently, his lips came towards mine and he kissed me softly. "You better come back to me in one piece."

"I'll try my absolute best." I promised. I kissed him, again before stepping back from him.

"When you get out of there, apparate south to the river, I'll set up just east of where we are." I nodded. "Granger!" He called; I turned to look at him. "Be careful please." My gaze softened and I smiled at him.

"Of course I will be. I'll be back to you before you know it." I promised. Draco nodded and waved sadly at me before I walked off. As soon as I was out of sight from Draco I cast a disillusionment charm over myself and walked quickly to the barrier around the house. I could sense the barrier and knowing what to look for I could just make it out. It was like back when Voldemort was in power and no one could get past his barriers without a dark mark. I held my wand out and whispered some complex spell work, creating a small hole in the protection charm. I climbed through the hole and cautiously made my way across the grounds. The compass was whizzing about in my pocket and I had to clamp a hand over it. I got to a side door and tried to open it, it was locked, so I performed a spell on it. I cast another spell that would cancel out any alarm or detection spells before cautiously opening the door.

I sidled into the house and quickly closed the door behind me. I pulled the compass out of my pocket and held it up, using it to guide me to the crystal. I crept down a long hallway that eventually led to stairs. The only time I had been in a manor this grand was when Harry, Ron and I got captured by snatchers and brought to Malfoy Manor. The walls were painted a warm shade of yellow, set against dark hardwood floors. I slowly made my way up the stairs when I got to the top of the stairs my heart picked up. There were two different sets of people in the hallway. Each of them was two men standing guard outside a set of doors, one group to my left, and the other to my right. I looked at my compass and went left. As I passed in front of the guarded door my compass unfortunately showed that I had to get through the door. I sighed. I dug through my bag and produced a couple of smoke bombs from my pocket.

I threw them toward the other guards and when they went off, the guards in front of my door raised their eyebrows and went off to check the disturbance. I quickly slid into the room and looked about. I cast a charm to see if there was any concealment in the room. There wasn't so I started scouring the room, looking for a more basic concealment. As I was walking along I noticed that the floor made an odd sound under my feet. I looked down and then knelt knocking on the wood. There was a loose floor board. I was reminded of how Harry used to keep his Hogwarts things under a loose floorboard in his room. I quickly dislodged the board and plunged my hand into the hole. My hand found a velvet bag and I pulled it out. I opened the bag and pulled out an iridescent crystal. It was beautiful. I admired it for a second before looking at the compass. It shook out of my hand and attached itself to the crystal. I slid the crystal back into the bag and stuck it in my pocket. Now I had to figure out how to get out. I could see by the shadows outside the door that the guards were back in place. There was always the window, but I wanted to find the hole I had already created in the barrier so that I could close it and no one would even have known I was there.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. I saw no other choice I had to go out the window and circle around the house till I could find the door I entered through. I checked the windows for spell work and disabled the alarm on it before cracking it open. I cast a cushioning charm and prayed that it would suffice. I jumped. I hit my spell and waited while I caught my breath. I flicked my wand at the window above to shut it. I then got up cautiously and made my way around the side of the house. I could see the door that I had entered through. Unfortunately someone had realized the door had been compromised. There were scouts searching the perimeter. I swore under my breath. I'd just have to cut a new hole.

I approached the barrier a fair ways from where the scouts were and concentrated on cutting a hole. I had just finished cutting the hole and an alarm blared. "Shit!" I whisper yelled to myself. I noticed then that my disillusionment had faded. I clambered through the hole and legged it. I had to get far enough away that there would be no trace on my apparition. I could hear footfalls behind me and chanced a glance over my shoulder. There were half a dozen guys chasing me. I had no choice I had to apparate. I span as I was running and just kept going. I had misjudged the distance and ended up further from the river than I meant... But I knew I had to just keep going.

* * *

The day had arrived. Harry, Draco, and I were leaving the safe house and going to the ministry. "Harry, you're sticking with us? I think we're more likely to come out unscathed if we stay together." Harry cast an eye quickly over Draco before nodding.

"Let's stay together. We'll have to find Ron. I'm sure he'll be there."

"Any one we come across." I agreed. "Strength in numbers, let's not forget." The boys nodded and we all joined hands popping off the ministry.

When we arrived it was pure chaos people running all over the place. We sought out Kingsley in his office. He looked up from some papers when we arrived. "Hello." He tried to smile.

"What can we do Kingsley?" I asked.

"You can go down to the department of mysteries. I need that hall way guarded. Try to keep them out at all costs, but, I they get in do not follow them. There are too many dangers in there. Plus I have a contingent within the department. I'm sending Ron and Ginny down there as well as Neville Longbottom. You lot be careful okay?" We all nodded before setting off. We walked towards the elevators and took one all the way down to the floor that contained the entrance to the DOM. We were the first ones there and we took a moment to look between each other.

"This is it." Harry sighed. "Orion and his crew will be here with the hour, if they keep to their schedule. We need to formulate a plan. I'm not sure how likely it is that we will see much action. They might send a small party down here because of all the weapons in the department."

"Unless there is a prophecy about Orion and that's his motive for attacking the ministry." Draco shrugged. "There were whispers of a prophecy among his ranks. If there isn't much action then that's fine, we have control over that. But we should plan for if there is. Potter you're good at defensive spells, so you should be behind the rest of us covering us. Neville, well I'm not sure what he's good at besides plants, so we'll stick him back with you. Next should Hermione and I, we have the most duelling experience, and I feel confident that with the amount of people you can get in and out of an elevator at once we can handle ourselves. The she Weasley is fantastic at hexes, I know this from experience, and Ron is not bad a hexes either. So I think we should post them behind the pillars by the elevator and they can snipe people in the back from there." Harry looked baffled. I smiled.

"That's a pretty sound plan Draco." Just then the elevator opened and Ginny stepped out.

"Hermione!" She grinned. She threw herself at me and I hugged her tightly. "I've been so worried about you!" She looked around. "Harry!" She went and hugged him with a little less enthusiasm. "I've been worried about you too. News of fantastic war heroes reaches all the way to Bulgaria." She grinned, and then she saw Draco. Her eyes narrowed. "Ferret." She addressed him.

"She Weasel," He shot back.

"I heard you were on the good side of the war this time."

"Depends on your view of good, but, yes I suppose I am." Ginny nodded before looking back at me and Harry.

"Are you guys ready for this?" She asked. We all nodded.

Soon enough Ron and Neville arrived and we described our battle plan to them. Everyone go into place and we waited. Soon we could hear explosive noises from above us. I reached out and took Draco's hand and looked over at him. He looked over and smiled at me. "You alright love?" He asked.

"I'm fine, how about you?" I asked. He nodded.

"I'll be better when this is over." I grinned. Just then we heard a whirring sound and the elevator moving. The air tensed. The doors slid open and three of Orion's men all dressed in black emerged from the elevator. They barely had time to react when Ron and Ginny sent an array of curses at their backs. Ginny had used her specialty, the bat-bogey hex, Ron had cast a Jelly legs jinx and one of the two cast a body bind curse. All of the men were immediately incapacitated. Draco and I sent incarcerous charms at the men tying them all together. We used a sticking charm and set them against one of the walls.

We barely had the time to re-group when another three emerged. This continued for some time, around an hour, when we finally got a reprieve. We didn't really know what to do with all of the knocked out men in the atrium. Luckily at that point Kingsley arrived. He answered a question for Harry, proving that he was Kingsley, and then looked at our handi-work. "Well, you've made short work of these traitors, haven't you?" He asked. "I'll send some aurors down here to collect this lot. It's as I feared that Orion wants something from in the department. I'll be sending reinforcements down here." He said all this clipped tones, and just as quickly as he arrived, he disappeared. In the next hour the men we had apprehended were taken away, and as Kingsley had said, he sent us reinforcements. There were three people I hadn't met before, who introduced themselves. I couldn't focus on their names, and there was one person we did know, surprisingly Luna Lovegood showed up. She greeted everyone dreamily. We decided to place her at the back with boys doing protection spells. Fighting started up again and we all stood to attention.

We took down another four groups of scouts, when suddenly the genuine article arrived. Orion stepped out of the elevator alone. The curses from behind bounced of him and he grinned at us. "Draco my boy!" His voice was raspy and deep, it made my ears feel like bleeding. "What are you doing here amongst war heroes? You sir are a villain, trying to fight for the light looks ridiculous on you." His eyes were like obsidian abnormally dark in his pale face. "Ah, but your attempt at being noble tickles me." He laughed, the noise was an odd one, it bubbled up and out of his throat sounding like lava exploding from a volcano. "And what's this?" He turned towards me. "Is this the great Hermione Granger, with a Malfoy ring on her finger?" He laughed again. "Wonders will never cease. You should have stayed in with my lot." That was the end of the conversation as he drew his wand, pointing it at Draco. I could see that he had a complex personal protection spell up. I focused on taking it down while he had his attention on Draco.

"You know Orion, I think you're just upset that I duped you." I knew that Draco could tell what I was trying to do, and was stalling for time. "I mean you're supposed to be this all powerful wizard who knows all, and I strolled right into your ranks, and totally fucked you over. We stole back the only advantage you really had, and destroyed it, and all because you were stupid enough to trust me!" Draco chuckled. "You're not as bad ass as you think you are. You forget that I knew the real Dark Lord. He was fixture at Malfoy Manor during the last war. There was a man who knew how to incite fear and command a room. If working for the dark side meant working for you, is it any wonder that I switched sides?" A vein was throbbing in Orion's head. Draco had just bought me enough time to disable the protection around Orion. I nodded that he was ready to be attacked.

Hexes flew through the room, and Orion was way more skilled than I would've given him credit for. He was zooming about the room, faster than a shot. Within moments Ron and Ginny were incapacitated and Neville was sprawled on the floor. Draco got shot through with a nasty spell, I heard him crash down. Suddenly Orion was in my face. "Hello beautiful." He snarled. He grabbed me around the shoulders and pointed his wand at my temple. "You're going to get me into the department." He hissed.

"Why would I do that? I'll let you kill me before I do that."

"Ah, but no one else here will let you die. You're the golden girl! Harry Potters best friend, beloved by all the outcasts, and the love of Draco Malfoy's life. Some come along, we're going into the department, and you're my key." He walked backwards glaring at everyone in the room, daring them to do something. I racked my brain for a way out of the situation. I squirmed in Orion's grasp, so he held me tighter. I prayed that Orion was not very strong as I pulled my legs off the ground, hoping that the excess weight would topple him. It didn't but one of my very fine cohorts shot a jelly leg jinx at him, and he faltered, dropping me. I quickly got out of his grasp and sent a knock back jinx his way. He smacked his head against the wall and groaned holding his head. Three separate people cast incarcerous at Orion. Draco stood and walked toward Orion, clutching his side, where I noticed he was bleeding.

I looked into his eyes and saw fury, before I could stop him; he raised his wand, and ended Orion. "That man was a monster, I don't take chances." I could agree with his rationale. I just wish I hadn't seen it. After that things went quickly, Kingsley was informed and came to collect Orion.

* * *

The fight ended, and for the time being there was a feeling of relief. Everyone that was down with us by the department of mysteries got honours, and soon teams were set up to round up any Orion supporters.

As for myself, I was busy planning a wedding and getting settled back in at work. Draco had been heralded as a hero for putting a stop to Orion. Our engagement hit the press; it was pure shock at first, but then excitement over the prospect of two war heroes getting married. Draco stopped by my work unexpectedly one night. "Hey Drake, what're you doing here?" I asked looking up from some papers on my desk.

"Can't a guy drop by and see his fiancée?" He smirked. "I feel like I hardly get to see you anymore, you're here all the time." He pouted, coming to lean against my desk.

"You just feel that way because we spent twenty four hours a day together, and now we don't." I stood up and draped my arms around his torso, leaning against him. His arms came around me as well.

"We could just disappear you know? Grab a nicer tent and just tell the world to fuck off!" I leant up and kissed him quickly.

"You wouldn't actually want to do that, I know you." Draco shrugged.

"There is so much hype about us right now. I don't like it. Our wedding has turned into this huge spectacle."

"I know, I'm not crazy about that either. I would run with you if I could." I sighed hugging him tighter.

"Oh well, I suppose we'll get through all of this together." Draco said rubbing a hand over my back.

"Just like we have everything else," I agreed. I leant up and kissed him. "I love you Draco." I smiled.

"And I love you Hermione."

* * *

 **AN: So ends another story. I'm not completely sold on how I finished this I might create a wedding or a years later chapter dependent on feedback. I really enjoyed writing this story, it was kind of a challenge for me. I'd like to thank everyone who read, favourited, or followed this story. And A huge shout out to my reviewers! I love reviews and they keep me motivated to write. I felt it was time for this story to end, as all things must eventually. If you love Draco as much as I do, keep an eye out for a new story I'm working on that's Draco X OC pairing. Once again, thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed this chapter and this story. Let me know! ~WS**


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